Hometown

This book won second prize in its category at the Third Qimao Chinese Website Realistic Fiction Writing Contest in 2023. After China's reform and opening up, the two hundred mu of farmland in Erlizhuang, a village in southern Henan, gradually fell into disuse. Later, Ma Jie leased it and turned it into a peach orchard. In its second year of fruiting, a month of incessant rain brought gray mold disease to the peach trees and caused losses across the board, so Ma Jie transferred the orchard. Li Guoqing, the production team leader, had watched Ma Jie's entire operation and believed this was an opportunity not to be missed, but the villagers still dared not take over. Li Guoqing traveled south to Dongguan and then north to Hangzhou, persuading his son Li Tao and the villager Liu Zhongyi to take over the orchard together. As Li Tao and Liu Zhongyi ran the orchard, they encountered all kinds of difficulties, while their families faced their own trials. But they never wavered, eventually overcoming one challenge after another and opening a sand quarry as well. Encouraged by Li Guoqing, they went on to lease a thousand mu of farmland, expand the orchard, and offer shares to the entire village, achieving a dual leap in personal and social value. Several of the main characters are passionate about classical poetry, the very picture of literary types. After leaving the bustling city for the countryside, how will they find poetry in everyday life?