After the frail beauty went to the countryside, she went crazy with scientific research.

Chapter 267, Episode 0281: Wen Qizheng, Ye Liping
After handing the task of steaming buns over to Xiao Ye, Zhang Hongying took Lin Yuexi and Ye Liping and the others who had made arrangements the day before to go to the back mountain to pick wild vegetables.

Although there are quite a few mountains in the Northwest, there are even more desert plains. The mountains are more often just rocks with a few scattered trees. The dense forests like those in the South were absolutely unseen twenty or thirty years ago.

After the Northwest Corps was stationed here, in addition to defending the border, its most important task was to make the Northwest green and improve the environment.

Take the mountains behind them as an example. They searched for underground water channels on the mountains, then found the thinnest part of the ground and dug it open to bring the groundwater to the surface. They then transported soil up the mountain and planted trees one by one.

However, changing a large environment is not an easy task. The Northwest Corps has never stopped taking measures to improve the environment, but after twenty or thirty years, the mountains and forests behind are not lush, and there are no mountain products and wild game in the forests that can improve people's lives, unlike in the south and the northeast.

Because in order to make the trees easier to survive, drought-resistant pine and locust trees were planted here, and there was not much moisture in the surface layer. Many edible plants simply did not have a chance to grow here.

The task is arduous and the road ahead is long!

However, for military families, being able to gather some wild vegetables to supplement their household income is already a way to save money for their already struggling families.

There isn't a single soldier in the military with conditions like Leng Zhi's. Leng Zhi himself has a high salary and good benefits, and his daughter's salary is already no lower than his, with even better benefits. Although Zhang Hongying is a housewife without a job, she has some money of her own.

Therefore, the Leng family's life was already at the very top of the residential area, which is why they were willing to eat steamed buns and mantou without forgetting the guards around them, because they were not short of food.

Other families aren't that they don't care about those around them; they simply can't afford to.

Take Ye Liping for example. Her husband is the deputy director, and his salary is only twenty yuan less than Leng Zhi's a month. Their benefits are not much different. Ye Liping also has a salary of fifty or sixty yuan a month, plus some receipts.

The couple together earn about three hundred yuan a month.

They only have one son, who is currently serving in the army in the south, so they don't need to provide him with any subsidies.

Logically speaking, with these conditions, one shouldn't be living a bad life, right?

Indeed, Wen Qi was born in the countryside and had no powerful backing or support. Unlike Leng Zhi, he didn't have the occasional financial assistance from his grandfather. But in an era when rice cost only a few cents a pound, what did three hundred yuan mean?

However, Wen Qizheng and Ye Liping lived a very frugal life. Once, when Ye Liping was hospitalized, she couldn't afford to pay for her medical treatment, so Zhang Hongying lent her twenty yuan.

Wen Qizheng's parents are still alive. He has two older brothers and a younger sister, not to mention nephews, nieces, and cousins—enough to form a whole platoon.

Although Wen Qizheng was in the middle of the class, he was always the son his parents loved the most because he was good-looking and smart.

And his parents, they're also very good at manipulating other children.

The family was poor, and the parents could only afford to send one child to school. They felt that no matter how much they supported the others, they would not amount to anything. Only Wen Qizheng had the potential to rise above his circumstances.

As everyone climbed the mountain path, they all gathered around Ye Liping, listening to her panting as she recounted her family's story.

"The old couple are really amazing. I am truly grateful to them. They taught my uncles and younger sister with all their heart and soul. They let him read, and they were afraid he would be bullied, so they took turns picking him up and dropping him off every day. They would save any good food for him."

“When my son was young, he didn’t know how to be grateful. He was overly indulged and did a lot of bad things. Although he didn’t make any major mistakes and was young at the time, he was still wrong.”

Feeling ashamed of the poor appearance of the eldest and second sons of the Wen family, which made him lose face in front of his classmates, he ran away without saying a word to them, causing the eldest son of the Wen family to break his leg in the process of searching for him everywhere.

The second son of the Wen family fell into the river while chasing after Wen Qizheng, who was being willful and wanted to run away from home. He has been suffering from a lung infection ever since and still has to stop and catch his breath for half a day when he walks. The youngest daughter of the Wen family was almost bullied because of him.

Even Wen's parents were often angered by him and frequently had to see his great-grandmother.

When Wen Qizheng was fifteen, he saw a group of soldiers pass by their school gate. He was so attracted by the soldiers' handsomeness that he vowed to be like them.

But he knew his family would definitely not agree to him joining the army. At that time, there were wars everywhere, and joining the army basically meant he would never come back.

Then the kid came up with a plan that his ancestors would jump out of their coffins to praise him if they knew. He made himself dirty and dressed in tattered clothes like a refugee, and lied that he had already lost his family and had no other way to survive if he didn't follow those soldiers.

At that time, everything was chaotic, and it was difficult to check household registrations. The army was also short of personnel, and that particular team happened to be assigned a mission that required an urgent march, so they didn't have time to check.

If others don't take him along, he'll shamelessly stick behind them.

We can't let him starve to death, can we?

So even though the soldiers didn't agree to let him join the army, they still made sure he got enough to eat.

In addition, the little boy was so persistent. The soldier was marching almost day and night, and he was able to keep up. He also gained the knowledge of his superior, so the officer tacitly accepted him as the little follower.

Later on the battlefield, Wen Qizheng's superhuman eyesight proved invaluable, and after the mission was over, he finally became a soldier.

When they registered the household registration again, wow, both parents were alive and well, and all the siblings were still alive!

The military families all laughed.

Zhang Hongying laughed so hard she slapped her thigh, "I really want to see what the officer's expression was like back then."

It's probably a long story; where did this brat come from?

Ye Liping looked helpless. "As for me, Lao Wen said that he was almost sent back at that time. He had to cling to his superior's leg and cry for a long time before he was not sent away immediately."

Unfortunately, the officer who recruited Wen Qizheng into the army that year was killed in the next battle!
She sacrificed herself to save Wen Qizheng.

After that, Wen Qizheng was almost always fighting, traveling all over the country. After the country was finally liberated, he had to go abroad to continue fighting. He had no spare time to contact his family or find his benefactor's family.

Soldiers returning from the battlefield have experienced countless rescues like this, and have had numerous saviors.

In cases where only a few or even just one person remain in the entire company or battalion, many would carry the families of their fallen comrades on their backs.

That's how Wen Qizheng was. Once he finally had time to find his own family and the families of his comrades, he would try his best to make proper arrangements for each of them.

Some who have a history of sacrifice are fortunate enough to receive compensation, but many who have no history of sacrifice suffer greatly because their families are unhappy, and some have no surviving family members.

He emptied his pockets like that because there were still many people he needed to help. One family gave him ten yuan, another five yuan, and he had to compensate each family one by one. The couple's monthly income of more than three hundred yuan was simply not enough.