The Story of Nian Gailun

On a June afternoon, the sun blazed down, scorching the farmland across the Qilu Plain. The soil had cracked into fine lines, like the deep wrinkles on an old man’s face, while the corn leaves curled and drooped listlessly.

Nian Gailun stood on the ridge between the fields. Beads of sweat rolled down his dark cheeks like pearls slipping off a broken string, splattering onto the earth at his feet and vanishing at once. He held a sickle in one hand. After helping Uncle Zhang from the neighboring plot harvest half an acre of early wheat, he now gazed absentmindedly at his own experimental field.

“Gailun, take a break! This heat is no joke. You’ll get heatstroke!” His wife, Li Mei, approached from not far away carrying a large enamel mug filled with chilled mung bean soup sweetened with rock sugar. Even from a distance, he could feel its coolness.

Nian Gailun turned and grinned, showing a row of white teeth. “I’m fine. I can handle it. Look, the improved rice in our few acres is about to head. We need to keep an eye on it and make sure nothing goes wrong.”

He was thirty-five that year, the leader of the village agricultural cooperative and a celebrated farming expert across the surrounding villages. Over the years, he had guided the villagers in scientific farming, bringing in new varieties and techniques and turning poor fields that once yielded less than a thousand jin per mu into high-yield fields producing more than two thousand. From soil improvement and pest control to irrigation planning and farm machinery management, he knew it all. His mind was full of ways to boost yields and help the villagers prosper.

Li Mei handed him the enamel mug. “No matter how important the work is, you still have to take care of yourself. Just look at this weather...”