After Winning 30 Million, I Returned to My Village to Live Like a Slacker

At twenty-five, Luo Chen returned to Luojiawan with thirty-six million yuan in his pocket.

To everyone else, he was just a young veteran returning to his hometown. He drove a secondhand Land Rover, helped his grandfather tend the vegetable garden, ate at roadside food stalls with his childhood friends, and occasionally repaired the village’s power lines. Only his grandfather knew that the money his grandson brought home was more than just his military discharge pay.

He built a little courtyard house with white walls and gray tiles, then read and daydreamed on the second-floor terrace. He planted rice in spring, harvested grain in summer, smoked cured pork in autumn, and sat by the fire in winter. He quietly put money into the village, contributing materials to repair the ancestral hall, spearheading road paving, and paying to dig wells during droughts. Every expense was made without fanfare, and everything he did made life better for the people around him.

Five years later, when his daughter was taking her first wobbly steps in the courtyard, Luo Chen had finally built the life he wanted: money, family, roots, and a courtyard filled with sunlight that warmed him to the heart.

To lie flat is simply to settle your heart where you began.