Chapter Six: Diversified Operations

Zhong Di left the village at an unhurried pace, heading toward the jujube orchard. The electric scooter creaked as it moved, a sound that spoke plainly of its age. Along the way, he encountered a scattering of people—some familiar, some not. He didn’t stop to greet each one, but went straight on, his heart beating a little faster with anticipation. He wanted to see the place as soon as possible.

As he rode, Zhong Di cast his eyes over the surroundings, noting the changes since his last visit. There weren’t many; everything looked much the same. The shelterbelt was composed of the standard poplars and Russian olives, with fruit trees planted between. Asphalt roads had been built between each section, making travel much more convenient; without them, transporting fruit out of here would be no easy task.

The orchard boasted a variety of fruit trees—almost every kind found in the Northwest. The county of Shache had dubbed it the Hundred Fruits Orchard. Whether there were truly a hundred varieties, Zhong Di didn’t know, but orchard after orchard stretched as far as the eye could see.

It was about six or seven kilometers from the village to his family’s jujube orchard—neither near nor far, but a fifteen-minute ride on the little scooter. When he arrived, he was greeted by a large gate made of iron mesh, rusted a reddish-brown and layered with dust. It was clear no one had been here for a long time.

Through the iron mesh, the state of the orchard was plain to see. The place was a tangle of weeds and dead branches, completely abandoned. The jujube trees’ leaves were an unhealthy yellow, the trees themselves spindly and unpruned, having grown wild for years. There wasn’t a single patch that looked well-tended.

A few years back, as the price of grey jujubes soared, people began planting them here, hoping for a windfall. But when the harvests grew abundant, the price plummeted, at one point dropping to just over three yuan per kilogram. That was the main reason so many orchards had been abandoned. His family had invested all their savings from previous years, but suffered losses year after year. Eventually, not even offering the land for free could attract tenants. Left with no choice, they had let the orchard fall to ruin.

Zhong Di took out his phone, snapped a photo through the gate, opened WeChat, and posted it to his Moments with the words: A New Beginning. Then he put his phone away.

He opened the iron gate but didn’t set to work right away. Instead, he walked the entire orchard, surveying its state.

The orchard covered sixty mu—the standard mu of six hundred and sixty-seven square meters each. Deducting the shelterbelt, the central dirt road, and the homestead at the front, the net planting area came to about forty-three mu, all of it planted with jujube trees.

The trees were in poor shape, with many gaps where they had died. Tree ages varied wildly, but most were the grey jujube variety, which had once been a prized crop but had lost its value in recent years.

He’d long since made up his mind about how to rehab the orchard. Even if he wanted a peaceful life, the basics had to be secured first. His plan wasn’t complicated: to build a small farmstead, much like a pick-your-own orchard, combining fruit, vegetables, and some livestock—a diversified operation. But that would come later.

He divided the field into two strips, each split into four smaller plots. Such a division was necessary due to the terrain. The orchard’s uneven ground meant that spring and winter irrigation needed to be done separately, or the water distribution would be uneven.

This was nothing like the south. In the Northwest, fields relied not on rain but on groundwater, drawn up for irrigation by pumps.

The homestead at the front took up four mu. The original plan had been to build a nice house and a courtyard, but after years of losses, those plans had been shelved. There were no grand houses here, only three small rooms of a few dozen square meters each, and a higher, flat area used for piling and drying grey jujubes.

At the moment, only a dust-covered old tractor and a slightly askew rotary tiller stood there, both modest in size. The three rooms were lined up side by side, their doors facing south. One was for storing tools and odds and ends; the other two served as a temporary residence and a kitchen.

Opening the storeroom door, he found it packed with all sorts of farm tools and leftover fertilizers and pesticides—who knew how many years old.

After thoroughly inspecting the orchard, Zhong Di stopped and stood in the middle of the dirt road, his eyes wide open.

A wave of dizziness washed over him, and suddenly, the orchard before him transformed. A flood of information poured into his mind, chaotic and overwhelming, and soon a sharp pain stabbed through his head.

Startled, he stopped the strange observation and closed his eyes, trying to digest the information. In a word: chaos. The problems were immense, and Zhong Di quickly sorted through them. The most pressing issue was water. He vaguely remembered that aside from an early spring irrigation, his father hadn’t watered the orchard again.

He wasted no time. Grabbing a wrench from the storeroom, he opened the water pipes to one plot and headed straight to the well house. He had helped his father irrigate before, so operating the well was no problem.

At the moment the pump roared to life, Zhong Di heard the rush of water.

“Old Zhong... Old Zhong, is that you starting up the well?” came a middle-aged man’s voice from outside. It sounded like Uncle Zhang from up ahead—Zhang Youwei, the best grey jujube grower in the area. Even though red jujube prices had fallen year after year, his skills meant he still managed to turn a profit.

The well house wasn’t for Zhong Di’s family alone—six households shared it. Water was scarce in the Northwest, and drilling wells was strictly regulated. You could drill, but size limits applied; anything larger required application and approval. Zhong Di’s family had only a six-inch well, enough for foliar fertilizer and small tasks, but for large-scale irrigation, the big communal well had to be used.

“Uncle Zhang, it’s me, Zhong Di,” he called back as he left the well house. The well was running; now it was a waiting game. The process would take at least two or three days.

“Zhong Di? So your family is starting up the orchard again? Aren’t your parents working elsewhere? Why are you coming back to farm the jujube orchard?” Uncle Zhang peered at him, trying to remember, then realized it really was Old Zhong’s son, Zhong Di.

“Yes, Uncle, I’m going to bring the orchard back. But it’s not my parents—it’s me,” Zhong Di replied.

Uncle Zhang immediately put his hand to Zhong Di’s forehead, then to his own, muttering, “No fever.”

“Uncle Zhang, I’ll be coming to you for advice when I run into technical problems,” Zhong Di added with a smile.