"A fine, sad rain falls on Tomb-Sweeping Day; the traveler’s heart is breaking on his way."

From the warm days of March to the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, a full month had passed. The An family’s barren mountain had been cleared, and the saplings were all planted.

At the foot of the mountain, the greenhouses stood in neat rows, like a line of sentinels.

A month had passed since Jiang Xia left to have his wound treated.

During that time, Jiang Xia had called home several times, and each call brought good news.

They had found a renowned doctor in Beijing and a good medicinal formula.

New flesh had begun to grow on his hand, and his skin was starting to heal and regenerate.

Every time, it was good news.

Master Tang answered every call, always with Da Huang or Li Chengze by his side, of course.

In that month, Jiang Xia had more or less finished laying the necessary groundwork.

During this period, Master Tang and Da Huang had successfully established a relatively harmonious relationship.

After Jiang Xia and Grandpa Jiang left, Da Huang waited calmly for a few days. But when several days passed and they still didn’t return, he grew agitated and restless.

He thought he had been abandoned, and that Master Tang was the usurper who had taken over his home.

Da Huang directed all his fury at Master Tang.

If An Ning hadn’t been next door, Da Huang probably would have gone on a hunger strike to protest.

In the end, Da Huang spent his days at Anning’s house or out playing. But every evening, without fail, he would return to the Jiang family house to stand guard—or rather, to watch Master Tang.

Da Huang dragged his dog bed into the room where Master Tang slept and stared fixedly at him every night.

At first, Master Tang found it very unsettling, but gradually, he found he couldn’t sleep without Da Huang there.

Thus, the man and the dog settled into a harmonious yet bizarre coexistence.

Over the past month, Master Tang’s relationship with the An family had advanced by leaps and bounds.

Li Chengze didn’t know how to cook, and since he was taking lessons from An Ning, he ended up eating all three of his daily meals at Anning’s house.

Left all alone, Master Tang decided to join them as well.

However, Master Tang felt too embarrassed to just eat for free every day, so he naturally began to contribute his own excellent culinary skills.

The moment he revealed the skills of an Herbalist, passed down for hundreds of years, he won over everyone in the An family, including little Hei Dan’er, who had just started eating a tiny bit of rice cereal.

Every time Hei Dan’er saw Master Tang, he was even more affectionate than when he saw his own father.

But An Guoqing wasn’t the least bit angry. On the contrary, he encouraged Hei Dan’er, saying, "Hei Dan’er, it’s delicious, so eat up."

In An Guoqing’s eyes, nothing was more important than eating and drinking well.

’Isn’t working hard all for the sake of eating and drinking well?’

Master Tang would cook one or two meals a day, and spend the rest of his time following An Ning up the mountain.

At first, Master Tang preferred to go up the mountain by himself to search for precious medicinal herbs or culinary ingredients—which were often one and the same.

But after an incident with a wild boar coming down the mountain, he quietly fell into line.

However, having personally witnessed An Ning tear a wild boar apart with her bare hands, he couldn’t forget the sight. To this day, he still remembered her words of comfort to him.

"Master Tang, I’m not usually this violent."

Master Tang could only remember nodding, nodding continuously, at a complete loss for words.

’So this is Jiang Xia’s type? He has... intense tastes.’

The thought flashed through his mind and was gone.

From then on, whenever An Ning went up the mountain, Master Tang would follow. He wouldn’t say a word, just trailing silently behind her like a common soldier following his general. Wherever the general went, he went.

But after a few more trips up the mountain, Master Tang began to understand why An Ning had torn that wild boar apart.

Every time they went up the mountain, An Ning would casually ask a few questions about Jiang Xia, and Master Tang would answer each one.

Each time An Ning heard news about Jiang Xia, her movements would become just a little bit gentler.

If a day on the mountain passed without any news of Jiang Xia, An Ning would become somewhat irritable and restless, or even sullen.

On days like that, the small—and large—animals on the mountain would inevitably suffer a bit.

Master Tang concluded, ’That Jiang Xia boy’s love might not be unrequited after all.’

And so the days went by, one after another.

An Ning’s daily routine was to wake up early for a run, attend her classes, and eat her meals.

After eating, she would head out to work the land.

Once the main expanse of the barren mountain had been cleared, it was time to break the new ground. Every inch of soil had to be tilled and fertilized.

To get enough farm manure, An Ning drove the tractor to the neighboring villages to collect it, making several rounds. She even went to the livestock farm in town.

She did all this just because Master Tang had said that food grown with farm manure would taste better.

After a few days of hauling manure, An Ning felt as if the stench had seeped into her very skin. It was so nauseating that she lost her appetite for several days, even for meals cooked by Master Tang.

This experience also convinced An Ning of the necessity of expanding her older brother’s livestock farm.

In the end, she provided the funds to start building a new livestock farm on another plot of land near the mountain.

While the new farm was slowly being built, her brother and sister-in-law were already a month into raising their first batch of animals, gaining valuable experience.

The mountain was fertilized and watered, and once everything was ready, it was time to start planting.

After a month of construction, the Panlong Water Channel on the mountain was also completed on schedule.

They used stones from the mountain whenever possible, minimizing or avoiding cement altogether to build a rustic waterway that was in harmony with its natural surroundings.

Once this waterway was built, irrigating the mountain became much more convenient.

An Ning sent a few diagrams to the city, and a handful of simple water pumps solved all their problems.

The mountain was primarily planted with various types of fruit trees.

The entire perimeter of the mountain was planted with black locust trees. After three concentric rings of locust trees came a ring of rose bushes.

The thorny roses would prevent most people and small animals from breaking in.

Innermost of all was a stone wall built from local materials, and inside that wall was the main planting area.

The plan for the entire mountain had also included space for raising livestock.

Thus, an area on the western side of the mountain, near the livestock farm at its base, was marked out and enclosed with thorny plants. The plan was to grow plants inside that pigs, cattle, and sheep liked to eat.

The rest of the mountain was divided into several sections.

There was a section for peaches, one for apples, another for pears, a vineyard for grapes, a grove of hawthorn trees, and an area for nuts like hazelnuts and chestnuts.

An Ning also found some cherry trees. They were supposedly a new, large variety, but she didn’t know exactly what they would be like. In any case, she planted a small patch of them as well.

Even after all these fruit trees were planted, there was still plenty of space left on the mountain.

In the remaining areas, An Ning planned to plant sweet potatoes and other crops suitable for mountain terrain. The fruit trees wouldn’t yield a harvest for some time, so they needed some cash crops to balance the budget.

Developing the mountain was labor-intensive, but the greenhouses were much easier to manage.

Once they were built, all they had to do was sow the vegetable seeds. Within a month, fresh greens like baby bok choy, yu choy, and baby spinach were already on the An family’s dinner table.