The moment I opened my eyes, I had transmigrated into a story set in the past, as a nasty educated youth who despised the poor countryside and was demanding to return to the city.
In the book, the original owner abandoned her husband and child to go back to the city, only to end up destitute and die of illness during the layoffs at the textile mill.
I looked at the neat little farmhouse courtyard, modest but tidy, and at the quiet man who had silently brought me a shoulder pole of water.
I tore up my application to return to the city.
I started by fixing up the crumbling house, then leased the barren hills to plant fruit trees, and opened one of the earliest farm stays.
By the time my name was being praised throughout the surrounding villages, the educated youths who had once urged me to return to the city were getting laid off one after another.
And the quiet man, for the first time, clasped my hand tightly. “The greatest stroke of luck in my life was that you stayed.”
