Chapter 372: The Heavens Are About to Change

“CHIRP… CHIRP CHIRP…””CAW~ CAW~~”

The clamor of birds sounded overhead from time to time, prompting Qin Xiaoxia to look up in their direction.

Outside the Secret Realm, the vast farmlands were already a sea of brilliant gold.

Some trees by the fields were growing particularly lush, and in many places, saplings shot up like bamboo shoots.

Most ridiculously, small trees had even sprouted in some of the vegetable patches and rice paddies. As for the trees that were already in the fields or by the river, they were growing even more wildly.

The birdsong came from the trees of all sizes nearby, as well as from the ground at the edge of the rice paddies and the corners of rooftops on the village buildings.

This year’s autumn rice harvest was ripening a little later than usual, but it was still within the season.

It attracted both farmers and birds.

Many farmers from the nearby villages were going in and out of their paddies, not to harvest rice, but to pull out the small trees that had abruptly appeared.

This was much harder than pulling weeds. The trees’ roots were tangled and ran deep, and some had to be pried out with a small spade.

Wherever there was a tree, the surrounding rice was inevitably affected, making the patch of gold look as if a bite had been taken out of it and replaced with a touch of green.

Besides the trees, the rice itself was different this year. The stalks were taller than in previous years, and the grains were fuller and plumper.

“Here, here, let me help!! Quick, give me the spade!!”

Doudou excitedly snatched the small spade from an uncle. With its long handle and palm-sized steel head, it was perfect for removing the saplings.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Doudou, don’t just swing it around! Be careful you don’t hurt yourself! Slow down, slow down!! You’re not much taller than the rice right now, watch out you don’t get lost in the field!”

Uncle Lu, whose spade Doudou had snatched, wasn’t a full-time farmer. He just happened to have land, so he planted rice and vegetables. It was only busy during planting season; nowadays, machines did the harvesting.

Some villagers still had fields but had let them lie fallow, cultivating at most a small patch for vegetables. People like Uncle Lu, with time on their hands, would simply lease the land from them and farm it all together.

It was just that these small trees had sprouted in the fields, and they had to be removed before the harvesters could come in.

Doudou was the renowned little terror of these fields and vegetable patches, and he was already very familiar with the surrounding uncles and aunts. Qin Xiaoxia, his older cousin, often bought seasonal vegetables from the part-time farmers around, usually in large quantities and for a generous price.

Because of this, everyone was quite forgiving of Doudou’s occasional mischief. Plus, the little guy was endearing, so over time, he had become quite friendly with them all.

“Hey, hey, hey, be careful, don’t trample the rice!!”

Uncle Lu found he couldn’t even keep up with a child in the field and could only shout warnings. Then he saw soil flying near a tree in the center of the paddy, one as thick as a baby’s forearm. With a few scrapes from the spade in Doudou’s hands—SHH-SHH-SHH—the tree was taken care of.

He knocked the small tree over, dragged it out roots and all, and excitedly dashed out of the field to toss it aside. Then, spade in hand, he charged back into the paddy, having the time of his life.

The rice stalks were very resilient. A patch was dragged down by the small tree’s crown, but they straightened back up like a ripple in the water, returning to their upright state and continuing to sway in the gentle breeze.

After watching, stunned for a moment, Uncle Lu decided to walk to the edge of the paddy field to get a drink of water.

“Uncle Lu, I’m afraid the harvest is going to be affected this year, isn’t it?”

Qin Xiaoxia had been sitting at the edge of the field, lost in thought as he watched the birds flitting about. Hearing Uncle Lu step out of the paddy, he turned his head and asked casually.

“Yeah, it’s been a strange year. Trees growing right out of the fields. Some of these saplings look like they’d normally take two or three years to get this big.”

After a few shocks, he’d gotten used to it. Uncle Lu twisted open his tea flask, took a few big gulps, and wiped his mouth.

“I just don’t know how they grew. For some of them, there aren’t even any trees of the same type nearby!”

Qin Xiaoxia, however, shed the solemn expression he’d worn before chatting with Old Lu and replied with a smile.

“The wind brought them!”

Old Lu, sipping his tea, shot him a glance.

“Oh, and you know this how?”

The latter replied, half-joking.

“The wind told me, of course!”

Uncle Lu was a witty man himself. He laughed and called him a charlatan a few times, then looked at the rice paddy and thought for a moment before speaking.

“But the yield is actually going to increase. The way this rice is growing is anything but normal!”

With that, Old Lu reached out, plucked an ear of rice, and handed it to Qin Xiaoxia.

“Look at this grain. I’ve been farming rice for half my life, and I’ve never seen any this big!”

In Old Lu’s hand, the grains on the ear of rice were just a size smaller than the white popcorn made in an old-fashioned hand-cranked popper. It would take two or three ordinary grains of rice to equal the size of one of these.

“The stalks, too, are almost as tall as Doudou… The heavens… I’m afraid they’re really about to change!!”

An old farmer knows the heavens by observing the earth. Uncle Lu’s tone was filled with undeniable worry.

“So, are you not selling the rice this year?”

Qin Xiaoxia asked with another smile, and the wind around them seemed to soften at the sight.

Hearing the question, Old Lu also chuckled.

“I was thinking that, but the village secretary has come to see me twice. He said the town wants to purchase the rice, and the price is much higher than in previous years. I plan to keep enough for my family to eat for a year and sell the rest to the state. With this yield and size, I reckon it’ll be worth half a year’s salary from the factory.”

He was clearly worried about the changes, yet still happy about selling the rice at a high price. Perhaps this was just a small reflection of an ordinary family’s life.

“Alright, enough talk. I have to get back to weeding—er, de-treeing!”

After Old Lu put down his flask and walked back, Qin Xiaoxia flicked his index finger in the air. An invisible current of air shot through the dense rice paddy, parting the stalks to the left and right before they closed again.

A soft “THUMP~” was heard.

Doudou clutched his forehead, rubbing it.

“Big Cousin! What was that for?!”

“What do you think? Give the spade back to him. We’re leaving.”

Old Lu, of course, didn’t see any of this. He thought Doudou had hit his head on the spade handle and was worried for a moment. But the playful child dropped the spade and scampered off, so he figured it wasn’t anything serious.

The heavens… they were indeed about to change…

…

“CLOMP-CLOMP-CLOMP-CLOMP-CLOMP-CLOMP…”

The rhythmic sound of marching came from a column of Soldiers.

Guns in hand, they were fully armed.

This was a special, full-strength battalion of three hundred men. It wasn’t comprised solely of regular infantry, but was a mix of various service branches.

They had been conducting joint training for nearly half a year.

The battalion commander and the Commander ran alongside the formation, their steps in unison with the troop’s as they advanced toward a corner of the barracks.

“Halt!”

The Commander shouted.

SHFFT! All the Soldiers came to a standstill.

In front of them were rows of troop transport vehicles, as well as many heavy container trucks.

“Board by fireteam assignment! We depart in three minutes! Move out!”

WHOOSH! The Soldiers quickly boarded the transport vehicles. A fireteam unit consisted of 30 men, with an assigned vehicle group of 2 armored personnel carriers and 5 heavy container trucks.

The drivers, of course, were also among these Soldiers.

“VROOOM… VROOOM…”

Three minutes later, vehicles of all sizes drove out with the roar of their engines, the vibrations so intense that even the small pebbles on the concrete ground trembled, showing just how heavy these vehicles were.

In many military camps and even warehouse districts, similar scenes could be witnessed during this period: Soldiers running and vehicles on the move.

These vehicles all possessed considerable off-road capabilities. In addition to wheeled versions, there were even specialized tracked ones, though the tracked vehicles were not yet moving under their own power and were mostly being transported by train.

The rapid deployment plan for the mobile, modular defensive strongpoints had finally begun in full.

A special map of Hua Country served as the master guide for this deployment. On it, the deployment points covering numerous key regions across the country were linked together, resembling a constellation of stars.

Whether in factory districts on the outskirts of cities or inside newly erected steel sheds, the staging points for these strongpoints, before their full deployment, had long been arranged.

PS: Wednesday’s second chapter.