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Planting hundreds of saplings was a big project. Lin Lixuan had to hire workers to help plant them with him. They worked for four to five days to finish planting all the fruit trees. Looking at the rows of green saplings neatly arranged like terracotta warriors, Lin Lixuan, who was holding a hoe, sighed. When he was planting the rice seedlings before, he had mud on his face. Now, he was sweating all over with mud and withered twigs everywhere. In these few days, he’d lost more than a dozen pounds. The muscles on his body were more pronounced now. He didn’t look like a scholar in the slightest. He was now a farmer who worked the fields. Lin Lixuan only hoped that the saplings he’d worked so hard to plant wouldn’t die!!!
If at least half the saplings survived, then his efforts wouldn’t have been in vain.
He couldn’t guarantee the longan or lychee, but at least the Asian pear and the others shouldn’t be too hard to grow. Lin Lixuan thought of the modern times. Many street side campuses used mango trees for landscaping and planted the trees on both sides of the road. During their fruiting season, mango would fill the trees. The delicious fruits would attract the people, but those walking under the trees also had to worry about being crushed by the fruit—the fruit trees planted on the side of the road should be easy to grow.
His barren mountain was now full of green. Uncle Xu moved here the day he started planting the trees. He now lived in a newly built wooden house at the foot of the mountain. The wooden house was simple. Lin Lixuan said to Uncle Xu, who was checking all the saplings, “Uncle Xu, you will be here for a while. We should build you a new house later.”
“There’s no hurry.”
Besides the hundreds of newly planted saplings, dozens of adult trees were also planted, including loquats, bananas, and plums. What surprised Lin Lixuan was that Uncle Xu knew how to raise bees as well. They’ll be able to eat honey soon.
Meanwhile, Lin Lixuan also hired two long-term workers from the village to help take care of the orchard. This included helping with making the fertilizer, watering, fertilizing, and other things. One of the two long-term workers was the son of their neighbor, Old Lady Ge. His name was Ge Ergen. The other one was called Yuan Xiaoer. They both lived in Jade Creek Village. These two took turns guarding the orchard on the mountain.
Lin Lixuan came to the mountain to inspect the saplings and found Uncle Xu grafting branches. He couldn’t help but be surprised. He didn’t expect Uncle Xu to know how to do this. The other party saw his surprise and taught him how to graft fruit trees to cultivate them to grow good fruits.
As expected of someone who’d planted fruit trees for decades.
Speaking of grafting, Lin Lixuan thought of the five mu of watermelons he planned to plant. In his last life, as a company manager, he had a female assistant. That assistant was beautiful and had a good work ethic. Lin Lixuan admired her a lot. As a woman, she liked to raise little flowers and plants on her balcony, but she was born a plant killer. All her plants died. The only one that survived was a watermelon. The watermelon she planted in a big pot produced a big, round watermelon. She madly fell in love with watermelon after that. Indulging in the knowledge of watermelon cultivation, Lin Lixuan learned from her that the first time watermelon seedlings could be grafted with pumpkin seedlings. The first time they did this, they learned that watermelons grown this way were not as susceptible to pests. There were also no problems with reproducing them.
Pumpkins had a well developed root system and strong fertilization absorption ability. The watermelon vine that grew on it could grow better and healthier by borrowing the pumpkin root system. But if it wasn’t cultivated well, the watermelon wouldn’t taste good and it would have yellow flesh.
Grafting, in a sense, was like surrogacy. When the watermelon was grafted onto the pumpkin, the watermelon was like the deadbeat father!
After the fruit trees were planted, Lin Lixuan had a sore back for several days. He began digging pits to plant sugarcane. Sugarcane had a long growth cycle. Other things could be planted below the sugarcane as well, such as sweet potatoes and such. This was the relationship between the upper and lower segments of dirt. While planting sugarcane, a warm spring breeze blew past. Lin Lixuan and his family started cultivating the watermelon and pumpkin seedlings.
The pumpkin seedlings were verdant and green. There were fine hairs on the edges, and they were prickly to the touch. When it grew three or four inches long, they would grow seven or eight leaves. That was when they could start grafting. Picking off the leaves in the middle of the pumpkin seedlings and hallowing it out, they inserted the roots into the watermelon. They then fixed the clamp with a clip. Ten days later, they would know if the grafting was successful or not.
The tools for removing leaves and roots had to be disinfected so they wouldn’t infect the place of the graft. If they did, the grafting wouldn’t be successful. Lin Lixuan took his husband Ger Yan and his brother Ger Yu to graft the seedlings in the field. He didn’t dare tell Zhao Liniang. He secretly took the people to do this.
At the edge of the lush vegetable field, the wet soil carried the freshness of the spring rain. Ger Yu squatted on the edge of the vegetable field. He wore blue clothes. They were brand new, and ones he got after coming to the Lin family’s house. Ger Yan personally sewed it for him. He sewed the collar and sleeves by himself. Wearing new clothes, Ger Yu cherished it very much. He didn’t want to wear them into the fields, but Lin Lixuan said to him, “If you don’t wear new clothes, they will eventually become old clothes. Are you going to wait until they become old to wear them?” If he didn’t wear them into the field today, then he wouldn’t want to wear them into the county town tomorrow. If new clothes stayed in the closet all day long, then what was the point of it?
After saying this, Lin Lixuan added, “As long as you don’t roll in the paddy field and play in the mud, your new clothes will still be good.”
“…I don’t roll in paddy fields.” Ger Yu blushed as he said this. The field and plowing road was narrow. It was easy to slip in the rain. Children especially fell into the field when they weren’t paying attention.
He pulled out the newly grown weeds from the field, then brushed off his palms. He tried his best to pat off all the soil and mud from his hands. After coming to the Lin family’s house, Ger Yu was much cleaner and tidier now. His originally black and dirty little face had been ruthlessly scrubbed clean with a towel to reveal a delicate and beautiful little face.
Ger Yu raised his head. The red mole between his eyebrows was bright. HIs delicate and cute little face still had some baby fat. There was a deep mole on his right cheek when he smiled, which was very pleasing to the eye. Because Ger Yu looked so good, he captured hearts when he sold goods in the county town. Even people who didn’t want to buy his goods, when they saw his cute little face, they couldn’t help but take out a silver to give to him. Ger Yu curiously pointed at the grafted pumpkin seedlings on the ground. Pumpkin seedlings? He asked, “If you put a watermelon seedling on a pumpkin seedling, what will grow in the end?”
Ger Yan stood up. His expression was similar to Ger Yu’s, full of doubt. He hesitantly answered Ger Yu’s question, “It will probably grow…watermelons…” Ger Yu said this, but he didn’t believe it much either…
“…” Ger Yu was silent for a while, then muttered, “…Why do I think that watermelons won’t grow?” It was obviously a pumpkin plant. Even if it had watermelon leaves, it was still a pumpkin.
“…” Ger Yan also thought this in his heart, but he couldn’t say it. After all, Lin-dage was so enthusiastic about this. How could he ruin his fun?
He couldn’t help but clear his head and think about the book he read instead. “Well…it might grow into a squash.”
“What does squash look like?”
“Oh. It could be yellow… It’s very big, and inside…” Ger Yan said while gesturing with his hands as he looked at Ger Yu. Ger Yu nodded his big eyes, which were full of incredulity.
“You guessed it!!” A voice full of laughter came from behind the two of them. Ger Yan turned around and saw Lin Lixuan’s handsome face. Ger Yan was startled. His feet almost fell into the vegetable field. A pair of strong and powerful hugged him from behind. Ger Yan overcame this hurdle.
Ger Yan patted his chest and abdomen. “Why did you suddenly appear behind me? You scared me!”
Ger Yu covered his mouth and smiled. He’d seen his brother-in-law coming.
“You were too involved in your conversation and didn’t see me coming. Ger Yu, didn’t you see me?”
Lin Lixuan still had a smile on his lips. He didn’t expect Ger Yan to talk to his brother about planting watermelons behind his back like this. It’d been ten days since the first batch of watermelon seedlings were grafted. The three of them had grafted fifty seedlings in total, and only eighteen had survived. This success rate made Lin Lixuan both disappointed and happy.
Fortunately, this grafting method could be considered successful. As long as it succeeds, they would be able to solve a huge problem with planting watermelon. Lin Lixuan took Ger Yan to graft another hundred watermelon seedlings. They transplanted the seedlings that had been planted into the watermelon field that had been prepared. Lin Lixuan wondered how many months it would take to fill these five mu of land with watermelon seedlings.
In this way, the growth period of seedlings was different. When it was harvest time, they would be able to eat watermelons for several months.
Lin Lixuan took Ger Yan’s hand. Ger Yan grabbed Ger Yu, and the three of them leisurely walked back to the Lin residence. “We look like a family of three.” Lin Lixuan suddenly spoke up when they were on the road.
Ger Yan was stunned and didn’t speak, but Ger Yu, who was beside him, was very excited. He grabbed his brother’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Ge! Ge! When will I have a little niece or nephew?”
“…” Ger Yan’s eyes darkened. He’d been married to Lin-dage for more than half a year, and there was no sign of pregnancy. There was gossip in the village saying that he was a Shuang’er “who can’t give birth.” Saying that he was infertile. These words had flowed to Ger Yan’s ears. Besides, Zhao Liniang was also looking forward to holding her grandchild. He was anxious. What if…he really couldn’t have children? Would Lin-dage marry someone else?
“Ger Yu, you want a niece or nephew that much?”
“Mn! My brother and brother-in-law’s children will definitely be cute!” Ger Yu said with a smile.
Looking at Ger Yu, who looked very similar to Ger Yan, Lin Lixuan couldn’t help but think that Ger Yan and his children would look like Ger Yu, who was smart and cute. He couldn’t help but smile as he touched Ger Yu’s head.
“Why is your head down? Is there treasure on the ground?” Seeing that Ger Yan looked down, Lin Lixuan wrapped him into the crook of his arm.
“…What if I can’t have children?” Ger Yan plucked up the courage from his entire body to ask this question. He didn’t dare look at Lin Lixuan’s reaction. The people placed great importance on having heirs…The reason Shuang’ers weren’t as good as daughters was because of their low fertility rate.
Ger Yu, who was on the side, pricked up his ears and listened quietly.
Lin Lixuan smiled lightly, as if Ger Yan had just asked a small question. He touched his face. “What about it?”
“…What if we can’t have children?”
