Chapter 1: Stars in a Cotton Bag
As Chen Wang squatted in the backyard of his old house, his trouser legs were still stained with dust from the city subway. That dust, mixed with the dry air of the office building's air conditioner and the damp, fishy smell of the earth beneath his feet, clashed together, like two unrelated worlds tangled in his body.
The moment the tip of the rake dug into the dirt, he recalled that late night three months prior. When the client threw the seventh version of the proposal in his face, scolding him, "You don't even understand the traffic password," he stared at the old locust tree in his hometown on his computer screensaver and suddenly felt tired. He had spent half the night with his suitcase spread out on the floor of his rental apartment. He fished out the old photo album his parents had left before their death and found the photo of a backyard full of tomatoes. The next morning, he carried the suitcase back to Qingxi Village.
"Xiao Wang, you're really not going back to the city?" Grandma Zhang from next door passed by, carrying a bowl of rock sugar and pear water. The country eggs in her bamboo basket made a soft clatter as they swayed. "This three acres of land your parents left you has been left uncultivated for years. I even saw wild rabbits digging holes here last year."
Chen Wang mumbled a response, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the cotton bag in his pocket. The old man had forced it into his pocket last week after he'd helped the hunched Grandpa Lin push his tricycle at the village entrance. The old man's bony hands clutched the bag, his eyes brightening with a startling light: "Son, these are not ordinary seeds. They can make the land speak to you." The seeds in the bag were multicolored, like a crushed rainbow. When they fell into his palm, they still had a hint of human warmth, unlike the coldness of ordinary seeds.
He didn't take it seriously at first, thinking it was just the old woman's kindness. But squatting in this field, abandoned for four years, looking at the traces of the old vegetable patch among the weeds, he suddenly wanted to give it a try. He used a rake to clear ten square, shallow pits and planted the colorful seeds one by one. When watering, he made a point of circling the edges three times—this was his mother's habit when she used to grow tomatoes.
He straightened up, and Wangfu, the Chinese native dog lying on the threshold, suddenly barked twice, its tail erect. This dog was raised by his parents when they were alive. He had asked Grandma Zhang to take care of it when he returned to the city. Now, when he saw him, he whimpered in his throat and nuzzled his trouser leg.
Chen looked up, watching the sunset in the west turn a honey-colored hue. The wind whipped the crests of the distant rice paddies, swept past the old locust tree atop the courtyard wall, and scattered fragments of light across the ground. He pulled out his phone to take a picture to post on WeChat Moments, typing and deleting it in the edit box. The colleagues with whom he once railed against KPIs were probably now scrambling to finish a project. His abandoned "return to the countryside" might just seem like a pretentious joke.
Before bed, he went to the backyard again. The dirt pit was unremarkable, with only a few fireflies flitting among the blades of grass, their taillights blending with the stars in the sky. Wangfu curled up at his feet, licking the mud off his fingertips. His warmth filtered through the fabric, reminding him of the cool evenings his parents spent in the yard when he was a child.
The next morning, when Chen Wang was awakened by the sound of birds, he rushed out in his slippers.
The morning light streamed across the ground like molten gold, and ten tender green seedlings burst forth from the soil. Their stems were adorned with fine silver hairs, and the tips of their buds shone with a pearly sheen. Even more remarkable, each seedling had a unique leaf pattern: the eastern one resembled ripples, the middle ones had starbursts, and the westernmost one actually grew in a circular pattern, like a tiny whirlpool. Overnight, they had grown to half a foot tall, three times faster than ordinary seedlings.
"What kind is this?" Chen Wang squatted down, and just as his fingertips touched the star-patterned leaves, he saw them tremble slightly, and the tips of the buds flickered, as if responding to his touch. He suddenly remembered what Grandpa Lin said, "The land speaks back to you," and his heartbeat inexplicably quickened.
Wangfu circled the seedlings, sniffed them, and suddenly barked toward the village entrance. Chen Wang followed his gaze and saw a hunched figure vaguely visible in the morning mist. It was Grandpa Lin, the man who had given him the seeds. The old man stood under the old locust tree, his hands behind his back. He nodded at him from a distance, then turned and slowly walked away.
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