The first time Gu Yan saw He Lianyi, she was standing in the mud crying.
A volunteer teacher from the city, her high heels got stuck on the dirt road that had just rained, and her suitcase rolled all over the floor. The children around her were laughing so hard that her eyes were red, but she still gave them a smile that was uglier than crying.
"Give me a moment." He bent down and helped her carry the box onto her shoulders. "The roads in the village are difficult, so I can't wear this."
Later, He Lianyi learned that this man who spoke rudely was the most reliable person in the entire village.
What he teaches is not children, but adults - teaching how to grow mushrooms, improve soil, and build vegetable greenhouses. The villagers laughed when they saw him and called him "Technician Gu". He nodded, turned around and got into the field again.
He Lianyi teaches in the village primary school, and he works in the fields. Occasionally they met at the entrance of the village. She gave him two boiled eggs and he gave her a bag of freshly picked tomatoes.
The days passed by so leisurely.
Until that day, it rained heavily and flash floods blocked the road out of the village. He Lianyi was trapped on the second floor of the school, and the water had reached the first step. The children were so frightened that they cried, and she gathered them in her arms, her voice trembling, and continued to tell stories.
Gu Yan came here wading in waist-deep water.
He was covered in mud, but his eyes were astonishingly bright. He put the children one by one on the tricycle and settled them down. He turned around and stretched out his hand to her: "Let's go."
"Where to go?"
"High. My place."
That rainy night, they huddled in a makeshift shed, soaked to the skin and miserable. He Lianyi leaned on his shoulder and suddenly smiled: "Gu Yan, do you think we should change our profession? Those who build roads are more promising than us."
He was silent for a long time, so long that she thought he fell asleep.
Then she heard him say: "I won't change. You teach well and I farm well. One day, the children here will no longer have to wade through the water to go to school."
"Girls here don't have to wear high heels and cry in the mud."
It rained loudly that night, but she remembered these words.
Remembered for a lifetime.
——He is rooted in that land, and she is rooted in his heart.
Intention: He taught this land to grow crops, she taught the people of this land to grow dreams - and they taught each other what love is