Meanwhile, back at home, Chen Lina was surprised to find that the children, who had expected her not to return for lunch, were not waiting by the gate.

She had expected Liu Xiaohong to be the one preparing lunch, and the usual chaos with the three brothers—chickens running around, and Erdan dragging firewood all over the yard.

But when she walked in, she was taken aback.

Liu Xiaohong was in the yard, helping with the new grapevines, while Nie Weimin stood nearby, handing her some wire, his impatience apparent. “Cousin, you’re doing this too roughly. Can you be a little more delicate?”

Liu Xiaohong turned and raised an eyebrow. “You want to do it?”

Nie Weimin thought for a moment and said, “Never mind, you do it. You’ve got more strength.”

In truth, Nie Weimin was just trying to see her glare.

Everyone had two eyes, but hers were especially captivating.

Chen Lina, who once felt insecure, certainly didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

She was fierce—like a little tigress.

Meanwhile, Erdan and Chen Tiantian were feeding their little sister rabbit in the corner, their heads bumping into each other.

Chen Tiantian slapped Erdan on the head, “Can you get away from me? You stink!”

After entering the house, Chen Lina thought that today’s cooking would be handled by Nie Bozhao.

She thought to herself, with the clattering sound of his pots and pans, it’s better if I do it myself.

But to her surprise, when she entered, she found San Dan sitting upright next to his father.

On Nie Bozhao’s table were tea and a newspaper, and he was actually absorbed in reading it.

“Cousin, they said you weren’t coming back, but you actually did! I’ve made long noodles, hurry up and wash your hands, dinner’s ready soon.”

Nie Guozhu rushed out from the kitchen, his hands covered in flour.

He was the only one making dough, rolling noodles, and even starting the fire for cooking.

He was handling everything on his own.

As Chen Lina sat beside Nie Bozhao, she suddenly felt deeply moved. “For the first time in my life, I’m sitting at this table, waiting for a meal at home. Nie the great engineer, your face doesn’t look too good though.”

“Feel ashamed. In the last life, did he cook for you too?”

“You guess?”

Nie Gong was so angry that he took off his glasses. “Tomorrow, I’m going to buy a ‘Yuebinglou Cookbook’ to study. Don’t try to stop me.”

In fact, her cousin in the previous life wasn’t this diligent.

He didn’t cook at all, and even threw his dirty socks for Chen Lina to wash.

And after the reform and opening-up, he even complained about this and that.

One day, he suddenly discovered a new interest at the dance hall.

From then on, he followed behind young women in sportswear, never looking back.

At this point, Chen Lina couldn’t help but think how great Nie Bozhao was.

No man in the world could compare to him.

After all, he was pure-hearted.

Even after going overboard last night, he got up this morning and was quietly confessing before the busts of Marx and Lenin in the small study.

The three brothers sat down to eat.

As they left, Nie Weimin waved his hand. “Uncle Nie, I’ll leave the dishwashing to you.”

“Nie Weimin, come home early tonight. Don’t ask Nie Guozhu to cook for us again. I only have one bag of fine flour. Look at how much he wasted at lunch. If he keeps wasting like this, what will we eat in the second half of the month?” Chen Lina said as they got off the car.

Nie Weimin gave a sheepish smile, unbuckled his seatbelt, stretched, and said, “I knew it. You definitely won’t like how he wastes the flour. Haha, see?”

Well, this scaredy-cat, Chen Lina thought.

She knew he would never do something without confidence.

They had just left the base, and before they reached the farm, they were stopped by Wang Hongbing. “Lina, those two reporters from Beijing insist on going to the fields. They even say that investing in farming machinery in the frontier desert is wasting our country’s limited money, that it’s a return of the Great Leap Forward, and that we’re deliberately creating false prosperity. What should we do?”

“Give each of them a hoe. If they want to farm, let them. If they want to go check the situation, let them go all out. Let them stew for a couple of days before we talk,” Chen Lina said.

Such a bad attitude—refusing respect but being so arrogant with such bias.

Alright, Chen Lina thought, let’s see how they handle two days of real labor, then we’ll talk.

It was a strange contrast of weather—”wearing a cotton-padded jacket in the morning and a gauze one in the evening, eating watermelon by the fire.”

Though it was scorching hot in the fields during the day, with sweat pouring from their foreheads, once the sun set, it became so cold that everyone curled up and sniffled from the chill.

After a full day of working the land on the Gobi Desert, Jin Shi thought it was time to move into the shack that Wang Hongbing had arranged for them.

After all, it was warm and clean.

However, Reporter Guo, wandering around, ended up staying with the male “educated youth” (intellectuals sent to the countryside) in their shack.

The men cooked for themselves, and the food they made was terrible.

As the saying goes, “even in three years of drought, there’s always one person who won’t pray for rain.”

One of the male “educated youth,” named Hou Hao, was lazy and unproductive.

He didn’t want to work and often faked sickness to avoid labor.

Of course, if he didn’t work, he didn’t get food. While the others at least had some porridge to eat, he was left to nibble on two half-cooked cornmeal buns.

Out of pity, Reporter Guo didn’t join anyone else but offered Hou Hao some of his own snacks—cookies and instant noodles—and had a chat with him.

Well, Hou Hao was completely opposed to the system that Director Chen Lina was implementing.

In his view, she was using the funds from the mining district to buy production tools and pushing the “educated youth” to reclaim wasteland, all for the sake of her own political achievements.

“Why spend money buying farming machinery? They should use it to buy fine flour and improve the living conditions of the ‘educated youth,’ right? Why make us work so hard? The real solution is to bring us back to the city, let us live a comfortable life with good food and drink, rather than laboring here in the fields.”

It should be noted that the two reporters had never seen the conditions the “educated youth” lived in before Chen Lina arrived—sleeping on hay mats, eating thin gruel.

They were unaware that the bedding of many male “educated youth” was generally so filthy, and they assumed it was the director who was mistreating them.

As for Hou Hao, who was too lazy to work, he laid in the shack, faking sickness while everyone else worked overtime to get the spring planting done.

He complained non-stop about his situation.

Reporter Guo, having only been there a few days and not yet experienced the full scope of the situation, recorded Hou Hao’s thoughts.

He was planning to write a report when they returned to Beijing, criticizing Mulan Farm as an example of “show-off governance.”

The next day, they still hadn’t met Director Chen.

On the third day, still no sign of her.

They had finished all their instant noodles and cookies, had no way to get back to the mining area, and hadn’t been able to develop the photos they took.

Guo was becoming increasingly desperate.

Finally, he decided to go find Chen Lina and ask her for a ride back to the mining area.

Coincidentally, it was a Saturday.

That day, workers who wanted to earn some work points in exchange for cotton or fruits, or even some of the miners hoping to trade for cotton or fresh fruits like strawberries and mulberries for their children, would be taking trucks to the farm to help the farm workers with their labor.

Chen Lina, along with her four children, woke up early that morning.

They drove towards the rising sun in her car, each with a buckwheat pancake in hand.

Liu Xiaohong led the singing, while Erdan shouted along, singing from “The Sunset Over the Western Hills” to “A Small White Poplar,” with a car full of little children.

But don’t think they’re useless.

When they get to the field, they can help mix pesticides with wheat grains and help the workers with fertilizer.

Take Liu Xiaohong, for example—she’s quick and efficient.

She can even help the workers plant wheat seeds into the furrows one by one, and she does it more evenly than the most skilled worker.

“Hello, Director Chen, are you done with your work today?”

“Oh, is this Reporter Guo? I almost didn’t recognize you,” Chen Lina said with a smile.

Well, thinking back to when Reporter Guo first arrived, he wore a white shirt, a Liberation uniform, and even had a pen tucked into his chest pocket—he looked quite refined and handsome.

But after just three days in the dirt, his hair was greasy, and his white shirt was covered in a layer of black oil, looking like a shriveled-up raisin exposed to the sun and rain.

“So, I heard that the article Reporter Guo is writing is called ‘On the Practical Impact of a Self-Important, Vanity-Filled Leader on the People’s Lives.’ In your article, am I the vanity-filled, self-important leader who pushes workers to create miracles in the desert, regardless of their hardships?” Chen Lina teased.

That was indeed how Reporter Guo had written it, but he didn’t realize that he hadn’t shown his draft to anyone.

In fact, the young women and men on the farm, who were friendly with each other, were not uneducated.

They had secretly read his draft, and Chen Lina knew all about it.

After getting out of the car, Nie Weimin asked Wang Hongbing, “Uncle Wang, what are we doing today?”

“You’re going with me to the greenhouse to catch pests. Er Dan wants to join too. No, no, Er Dan, you stay behind and spread fertilizer instead.”

As soon as Wang Hongbing finished speaking, San Dan seriously tugged at Chen Lina’s sleeve, stood on tiptoe, and gave her a kiss before running off.

Ah, in the past life, Old Nie treated her like this—goodbye kisses when leaving, and welcoming kisses when entering.

But in this life, Old Nie had lost his romantic touch, and now San Dan had become her idol.

Er Dan followed Liu Xiaohong closely and said, “Wherever you go, Little Hongjie, I’ll go too.”

“I’m going to mix pesticide with the wheat. Can you help me carry the wheat?” Liu Xiaohong asked.

Nie Weimin looked at San Dan running off, then looked at Er Dan and Liu Xiaohong heading toward the warehouse.

In the end, he decided to chase after San Dan.

In March and April, there were no idle people on the farm, not even stray dogs.

Reporter Guo stood there, stunned, when he saw Chen Lina climb onto a tractor and wave at him. “Come on up.”

“Director Chen, I’ve already interviewed you. I should go back and write the article now.”

“No, the farm you saw is just what you imagined. You have to come with me and see the real farm,” Chen Lina called out.

Coming out through the back gate of the farm, there she was—this beautiful woman wearing a straw hat and driving a tractor.

It was an odd and unharmonious sight, but also strikingly heroic.

Jin Shi chased behind, taking photos with his camera.