Her Cultivation Diary-Chapter 212 - . Peach Blossoms All Over the Mountain_1

Chapter 212: 212. Peach Blossoms All Over the Mountain_1

Chapter 212: 212. Peach Blossoms All Over the Mountain_1

Now it was almost mid-April, and Zhao Fangyuan was wandering around the mountains in search of inspiration. Presently, she gazed at the deep trenches surrounding the Peach Garden and asked:

“Is this a drainage ditch?”

While she was in design, she most often frequented construction sites and farmers’ courtyards, and not so much these rough rural orchards.

Song Tan replied helplessly, “This was originally intended to be a plant protective wall, but the Golden Sakura that I wanted to plant has been out of stock, so it’s been put on hold for the time being.”

“What does Golden Sakura look like?”

“There are some by the Chestnut Garden. They’re about to bloom.”

Zhao Fangyuan was dying of curiosity—what a beautiful name!

However, before she could go over there to see, her attention was captured by the tightly secured wire mesh right in front of her, as she curiously inquired, “With this already in place, why do you need to plant anything else?”

In front of her was a row of green wire mesh protective fences, at least one meter eighty high, which enclosed the entire orchard, leaving only two gates, and looked very sturdy.

Song Tan replied with resignation, “Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?”

Mesh wire like this was present in her pigpens and Chestnut Garden in the back mountain, but such things keep out the honest folks, not the thieves.

Once business picked up, she couldn’t predict what stupid things those jealous of her success might do. Planting Golden Sakura meant that the orchard would be prickly inside and out—if anyone did manage to get in…

Well, they’d be likely to lose a layer of skin either way.

It was a pity, for the orchard’s yield wouldn’t be small this year, and they had even looked specifically for large Golden Sakura plants, but hadn’t found the right ones.

However, Zhao Fangyuan had given her a reminder: as the weather gradually warmed up, it was almost no longer the best time to plant.

She had to hurry.

But for now…

Zhao Fangyuan had already rushed into the Peach Forest, exclaiming, “So beautiful!”

The extensive twenty-acre Eagle Beak Peach was already budding with many leaves and flower buds when planted. Now, nourished by Spiritual Energy, its roots were firmly entrenched in the soil, making the trees vibrantly alive!

From a distance, a steamed-pink glow spread across the sky, rivaling any popular tourist spot!

Zhao Fangyuan ventured into the Peach Forest, regretting she had not worn traditional clothing or brought a camera. She was surrounded by an endless spread of pink clouds, occasionally sprinkled with cute green leaves, branch by branch, vine by vine—

“Ah ah ah—”

She was too excited to speak, grabbing the fence and shouting.

Yes, a fence.

Because in the end, she hadn’t ventured deeper in—the ground was covered with lush Watermelon Vines!

The flowers and leaves of the peach trees did not grow wildly, and the sunlight beneath was just as intense. It absorbed Spiritual Energy, and so did the watermelons, both growing robust and strong. The early melons, planted not long ago, were even eagerly budding!

“Too bad,” Zhao Fangyuan sighed, “if you hadn’t planted watermelons, you could have attracted people to take photos now, and the whole village could have prospered from it.”

Song Tan shook her head, “After all the photo-taking, who knows how much damage my peach trees would incur? No way, not doing it.”

Besides, the peach blossoms would make the village prosperous. But what about after they withered?

A short-lived boom was useless; if the local infrastructure couldn’t keep up, it could easily leave a bad impression.

But Zhao Fangyuan was right about one thing!

This place was indeed too beautiful, haha! And it belonged to her! With flowering came nectar, with fruit came harvest, and even when there was nothing, there was still peach gum…

The peach trees were really not absorbing Spiritual Energy for nothing!

Zhao Fangyuan didn’t want to leave the Peach Forest at all, but looking at Song Tan gave her a bit of a guilty conscience—after all, she was supposed to be counting on her for the blueprints.

Nowadays…

“Cough!”

She said seriously, “Actually, I’m not here just for fun, I need to take a look at your family’s land so that I can better integrate it with the style of the house.”

Song Tan smiled warmly, “Look around, feel free to look! If you feel guilty after seeing it, the price will be easier to negotiate!”

She pointed towards the hill opposite, “Over there is the chestnut forest, where we’ve planted black and white fungus, and the golden sakura are blooming, very beautiful… Shall I take you there now?”

Zhao Fangyuan: …

What to do, how to combine the design of a farmhouse with chestnut trees, black fungus, and golden sakura?

She silently scolded and comforted herself, a swift stream of psychological activities: Can the affairs of an artist be called slacking, idling, and sightseeing?

There’s a road from the back mountain to the Chestnut Garden that the village uses.

The newly built road wasn’t very wide, but it was wide enough for a vehicle to pass without any problems. Because it was near the mountain, there weren’t many households around, and few cars came this way.

Looking at it now, it appeared much newer and smoother than the main road.

Zhao Fangyuan was already thinking like a landowner, commenting, “This road is quite good, after the mountain yields a bountiful harvest, you can drive straight up to collect.”

R𝑒ad lat𝒆st chapt𝒆rs at free𝑤ebnovel.com Only.

Song Tan nodded too, “The policy is really good. Back in my childhood, all of this was just narrow paths where you couldn’t even ride a motorcycle. When my dad wanted to transport chestnuts from the mountain, he had to carry them with a shoulder pole.”

Sometimes her mom would also help with the carrying.

Once carried home, they’d be piled up in an empty room, where she and her family members would sit with the heavy traditional scissors, one foot pressing down on the chestnut burrs, one hand with the scissors. They would directly reach into the four-part shell to pry it open, revealing the glossy, plump chestnuts inside, usually in groups of three or four.

Looks easy and fun, doesn’t it?

But the heavy scissors were burdensome and painful to the hand, just a few more hours of work and bloody blisters would form.

Would wearing gloves be better?

No blisters, maybe, but scraped skin still hurt just as much.

And chestnuts were very prone to worms. If you leave them out for a day or two, there would be wormholes inside, so everyone had to race against time. As they were peeling the burrs on one side, they had to sort through the chestnuts on the other side, and by dawn, it was time to deliver them to town.

Since day work couldn’t be delayed, many of the large purchases in their area began in the early morning.

With motorcycles it was manageable; they’d stack the bags of chestnuts up high, wobbling dangerously, and then ride to the town to deliver them.

In even earlier years, they had carried them to town with shoulder poles.

The journey from home to the town took two arduous hours, over mountains and ridges.

One who hadn’t experienced it couldn’t possibly imagine the hardship.

Song Tan now recalls her time in junior high school in town, walking home every week, then trekking back for classes, and it seems incredible to her.

Neither she nor Qiaoqiao were short, but Wu Lan and Song Sancheng… Song Sancheng was barely over one meter sixty.

Was it a matter of their genes that they couldn’t grow taller?

It was purely due to not getting enough food when they were young, coupled with the pressure of hard agricultural work.

Back then, every household had rice paddies growing rice. Just the task of carrying the harvest could half-kill a person.

Rice sold for nothing. All these years, the price has not gone up. Chestnuts have indeed increased in value, but just think of the times when fresh, glossy brown chestnuts, at their best condition, were brought to town, only to sell for eight yuan a kilo.

This income was the yearly earnings of a whole family. Because after National Day, there were no other crops to sell.

Grafting, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting…

Every penny earned by a farmer, wasn’t earned easily.