Interstellar to 80s: A Scientist's Farming Mission

As Li Chenggong walked from one end of the tractor to An Ning’s side, she grabbed the edge of the trailer, flipped herself up in a handstand, and landed on her feet atop the pile of sorghum.

From her high vantage point, An Ning completely ignored Li Chenggong and continued stacking the sorghum stalks.

"An Ning, An Ning!"

Li Chenggong tilted his head back and kept shouting for An Ning, his voice growing louder and louder until everyone working in the fields could hear him.

An Ning’s patience was gradually wearing thin. She held a sorghum stalk in one hand.

The sorghum stalks had all been cut with sickles, leaving their bases with sharp, slanted points.

An Ning kept her back to Li Chenggong, hoping he would see how unwelcome he was and retreat. But she hadn’t expected the man to be so impervious to reason, possessed of a relentless shamelessness.

"An Ning, it’s me, Li Chenggong! I even had the matchmaker go to your house to propose a match."

Li Chenggong had, of course, heard from the matchmaker that the proposal was rejected. But with An Ning’s good looks and her talent for making money, a single refusal wasn’t enough to make him give up.

"Get lost!"

An Ning whipped her arm down, and the sharp sorghum stalk flew like a javelin, embedding itself in the ground right beside Li Chenggong’s thigh.

The sorghum stalk quivered back and forth. Li Chenggong dropped to the ground with a THUD.

"Get lost. If you dare bother me again, the next stalk will go straight through you."

Sitting on the ground, Li Chenggong looked up at An Ning.

’It was still the same face, but why was her expression so terrifying?’

Li Chenggong was genuinely terrified. He was just trying the same tactics on An Ning that he always used to flirt with other girls.

Usually, all he had to do was dress nicely, give the girl a small gift, and shower her with compliments, and he’d succeed.

’But this... this isn’t how it was supposed to go at all.’

An Ning shot Li Chenggong a cold snort before looking away. Just like that, she was back to being the same well-behaved, clever An Ning as before.

"Let’s keep working."

"Oh, right. Work, work."

"The sorghum grew really well this year."

"You can say that again. Let me tell you, there’s a patch of corn that grew really well too. The cobs are huge."

"Really?"

The others stacking sorghum gradually changed the subject, and no one paid any attention to Li Chenggong sitting on the ground.

Everyone understood exactly what Li Chenggong was after.

On the ground, Li Chenggong’s eyes darted left and right. Unwilling to give up, he was about to shout again.

"An—"

WOOF WOOF WOOF!

An Ning, who had been about to throw another sorghum stalk, stayed her hand. She watched as Da Huang came running, its momentum carrying it forward to successfully tackle Li Chenggong.

WOOF WOOF!

Da Huang’s face was inches from Li Chenggong’s, its barks nearly splitting his eardrums.

Pinned to the ground, Li Chenggong could even tell what Da Huang had eaten from its breath.

"Get him off me, get him off me!"

Li Chenggong was utterly terrified of Da Huang. From her perch on the tractor, An Ning, enjoying the show, yelled, "Da Huang, kiss him!"

WOOF!

Da Huang’s tongue lolled out, and it gave Li Chenggong a somewhat disgusted lick.

BLECH—WHIMPER—

Da Huang threw up.

It shot An Ning an aggrieved look, which sent her into a fit of laughter, collapsing onto the tractor bed.

"HAHAHAHAHA! Da Huang, you— HAHAHAHAHAHA— you’re killing me."

When Jiang Xia arrived, this was the scene he saw.

An Ning roaring with laughter, Da Huang looking utterly miserable.

"Da Huang, get off him. Scum never tastes good."

WOOF!

Da Huang finally let go of Li Chenggong and trotted to Jiang Xia’s side.

Now, Jiang Xia and Da Huang stood beside Li Chenggong, while An Ning sat on the tractor, still unable to stop laughing.

No matter how shameless he was, Li Chenggong, still on the ground, couldn’t take it anymore.

He scrambled to his feet, grabbed the things he had brought, and ran off without a single word.

From the tractor, An Ning waved at Jiang Xia.

"Give Da Huang an extra bone tonight. I’ll pay for it."

"Sounds good. If you need him again, you can borrow Da Huang. Just remember to feed him meat."

An Ning actually agreed to Jiang Xia’s suggestion and made plans to "hire" Da Huang during the day.

Jiang Xia left. Da Huang stayed.

An Ning continued her work with the tractor. They worked, rested for lunch, and then got back to it.

This went on for several days, with Da Huang always by her side.

Over these few days, a surprising number of matchmakers visited the An family, arriving in several waves.

Fortunately, aside from the first one, the others were merely go-betweens and not nearly as shameless.

As soon as Lin Cuihua explained that her daughter wasn’t looking for a partner and wasn’t interested in matchmaking dates, they would all leave with a polite smile, preventing any overly awkward situations.

After Lin Cuihua’s repeated refusals, the talk from the outside world finally died down.

「Three days later, it was time to raise the main beam for the An family’s new house.」

Raising the beam is a relatively important part of building a house.

Once the main crossbeam was in place, the other beams would be hoisted up one by one. After that came the roofing, and the basic framework of the house would be complete.

The rest of the work, like installing glass and finishing the interior, could be done in the winter, so there was no rush.

On the day of the beam-raising, An Ning got up very early to go up the mountain.

She had told Jiang Xia yesterday that she would be going up the mountain by herself today to try and find a wild boar.

A lot of people were coming for the feast today; most of the village would probably be there.

A few pheasants and wild rabbits were clearly not going to be enough.

When An Ning appeared at the foot of the mountain, she saw Jiang Xia again.

"I’m going up the mountain today."

"I wasn’t waiting for you. I was going up the mountain too."

Jiang Xia turned his head away haughtily and started walking ahead of An Ning.

An Ning, walking behind, saw nothing amiss and simply followed him up the mountain.

They fell into their familiar formation: Jiang Xia in the lead, An Ning in the middle, and Da Huang bringing up the rear.

"Hunting wild boar?"

"Planning to. Don’t know where they are."

Jiang Xia stopped and looked back. "I know a spot. Team up?"

"No problem. You lead the way."

Jiang Xia quickened his pace to lead the way, with An Ning keeping up and Da Huang following closely behind.

Once again, the team of two humans and one dog was successful, though this time they only bagged three wild boars.

An Ning took one, and Jiang Xia took one for himself to sell.

"What about this one?"

An Ning asked, pointing at the largest boar between them.

"Let’s give it to the village. We’ve been hunting too much on the mountain lately. Drawing too much attention wouldn’t be good."

An Ning understood immediately and nodded at Jiang Xia in agreement. "You’re right."

"What are you smiling about?"

An Ning didn’t understand Jiang Xia’s smile and asked him bluntly.

Jiang Xia just smiled without answering. ’Could I really tell her I just love hearing her say, "You’re right"?’

’It felt so damn good!’

"It’s nothing. Just happy we got the boars."

’That can’t be it,’ An Ning thought. ’Last time we bagged way more, and I don’t remember him being this happy.’

But she didn’t press the issue. The two of them worked together to bring the wild boars down the mountain.

When they reached a suitable spot, Jiang Xia dragged his boar and took another path, while An Ning hauled the other two down the mountain by herself.

She happened to come down near the An family’s new house and shouted to the people below.

"Brother, come help!"

"Little Sister?"

An Guoqing followed the sound of her voice and ran over.

"Wild boars?"

"Yep. We’ll eat the smaller one ourselves, and the big one is for the village."