All the heavens begin with the love in the courtyard.

To put it bluntly, he's an irresponsible person.

However, it is clear that the world is already changing quietly, because Zhang Peng's personality is subtly influencing the personality of this body.

After seeing his father, Zhong Yuemin spent the next three days making some preparations for his upcoming trip to northern Shaanxi. He spent most of the rest of his time eating, drinking, and chatting with a group of children from the compound who were about to part ways. They shared their ideals and ambitions for the future.

Most of the children of high-ranking officials in this era were junior or senior high school graduates. Due to the wave of the revolution, most schools had been closed for two years. Everyone had countless hopes for the future, as well as confusion.

Although Zhong Yuemin didn't have the heart of an elder brother, his reputation gradually grew over time, and his home gradually became a gathering place for many children of high-ranking officials.

Most of the children of high-ranking officials who went to join the army were full of hope and expectations for the future. However, many of the children of high-ranking officials, like Zheng Tong and Zhong Yuemin, who were sent to the countryside due to their parents' circumstances, were filled with confusion and uncertainty about the future. Some even ended up taking a different path.

Zhong Yuemin also took this last opportunity to explain to them some things that might happen in the future, such as that this current wave will eventually end, because a country can never…

Zhong Yuemin's words were somewhat sensitive. In short, at the end of his speech, Zhong Yuemin made a ten-year promise with them: ten years later, we will meet again here. During these ten years, we will not give up our ideals and beliefs, we will study hard and improve ourselves, and we believe that our future will be bright!

Zhong Yuemin's words of encouragement inspired many other educated youth who were preparing to go to remote areas of the country to work in the countryside. They were all young people with passion, but without a belief to support them, it was easy to lose themselves and eventually give up their future.

Take the eight-year War of Resistance against Japan as an example. If the people of the whole country had known at the time that the war would last for eight years and that we would win after eight years, then there probably wouldn't have been any traitors in the country.

It is precisely because no one knows what the future holds that so many people surrender in the end for the sake of immediate survival.

The same applies to this group of young people who are confused about the future. The slogan for going to the countryside to work is to take root in the countryside for life and settle down and work hard there for the rest of their lives.

In this situation, as year after year goes by, you endure hunger every day, fantasizing that you will still be living like this when you are sixty years old. What would you do?

Once you surrender to life, some people will eventually lose their future and never be able to turn back.

In the original novel, there is a scene where Zhong Yuemin leads his special forces team to the border to complete a secret mission. This is a very dangerous mission because they will not only have to face armed groups from the enemy country, but also armed smugglers on the border, and finally, there are countless landmines.

On the way, Zhong Yuemin encountered a pair of well-equipped armed smugglers, and a fierce battle ensued. Zhang Haiyang was almost killed, but Ning Wei saved his life.

The smugglers were taken down one by one, leaving only the leader. As soon as Zhong Yuemin heard the other man's accent, he realized that he was a fellow native of Yanjing. He was very surprised that a fellow native of Yanjing would be doing such a deadly business on the border.

Upon inquiry, it was discovered that the other person, like Zhong Yuemin, had also been a sent-down youth, assigned to a desolate place, and eventually lost faith in the future, which led him down this path.

The leader knew that there was no turning back on this path, and in the end, he committed suicide by swallowing poison.

During this time, looking at these somewhat confused teenagers, Zhong Yuemin suddenly had that image in his mind, which is why he had the idea to motivate them.

Although he knew it might be of little use, what if it could change the fate of a few people?

He had only said a few words, so in these last few days, Zhong Yuemin gathered many other educated youths who had been sent to the countryside like him. Although they were assigned to different places, Zhong Yuemin still encouraged them with great enthusiasm and made a ten-year promise with each of them.

His most frequent saying is, "Friends, temporary hardships are only temporary. Don't be confused, don't be afraid. Our greatest asset is our youth. We must believe in ourselves. Our future will definitely exceed our imagination!"

Keep it up, comrades!

Whether they were familiar with him or had just met him, Zhong Yuemin always offered encouragement. This encouragement was indeed somewhat effective, as many young people asked for Zhong Yuemin's address, saying that they would definitely write to him when they got to their destinations.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye, and Zhong Yuemin, Zheng Tong, Ning Bin, and the others, carrying their prepared luggage, embarked on their journey to northern Shaanxi.

Upon arriving at the train station, the crowds of people seeing off their loved ones were countless. Many parents held their children and wept bitterly, while the words of farewell from their relatives and friends rose and fell.

There were quite a few friends who came to see Zhong Yuemin off. A dozen or so young people in yellow and green military uniforms stood in front of the platform, waving goodbye to Zhong Yuemin. Zhang Haiyang and Yuan Jun were among them.

Zhong Yuemin and Zheng Tong waved and responded with smiles, because another memory had been integrated into their minds. In this world, they had many more brothers and friends than in the original story, and were less impetuous and more composed.

This kind of temperament, which is different from his age, attracted more attention and admirers. Zhong Yuemin smiled as he looked at Zhang Haiyang and his group.

Sometimes he wondered if, in this world, he would attract several female confidantes, just like in the original story!

In the original novel, Zhou Xiaobai seemed to come to the train station to see him off in the end, right?

What about people?

Zhong Yuemin looked into the distance, but after searching through the crowd for a long time, he still couldn't find the tall girl with big eyes, and he felt a little disappointed.

The train's departure whistle soon sounded, and the cries of farewell grew louder. Just as Zhong Yuemin was about to turn his head, a clear female voice suddenly rang out from the crowd.

"Zhong Yuemin, I'm willing to wait for you. I'll wait for you to come back. I love you, I love you!"

The girl's voice attracted everyone's attention. All the young people at the train window craned their necks to look for the girl. These days, there are very few girls who dare to confess their feelings so boldly.

When Zhong Yuemin heard this voice, he was completely stunned. He turned his head and searched in the crowd. Soon, following everyone's gaze, he saw the tall figure in the crowd. Zhou Xiaobai was standing in the crowd with her two black braids so beautiful. Her fair face was flushed and her eyes were full of tears!

At this moment, Zhong Yuemin felt that only that figure remained in the world. The sound of the train starting had disappeared from his ears. The two of them were separated by countless people, yet they seemed to see each other.

Until Zheng Tong shook him awake and yelled at him.

"Yuemin, the train is about to leave, hurry up and answer them! What are you dawdling for, you grown man!"

Zhong Yuemin was shaken awake, feeling both helpless and touched. As the train slowly moved forward, he stuck his head out of the window and shouted at Zhou Xiaobai's receding figure.

"Xiaobai, thank you for your feelings. You deserve a better future. Feelings fade with time. We're both still young, so don't make promises about the future lightly. If one day I like you too, I will definitely make you a promise, I promise! Goodbye, Xiaobai! I hope you're happy every day from now on!"

After Zhong Yuemin finished speaking, Zhou Xiaobai's figure gradually shrank until it became a black dot. He smiled and waved goodbye to that black dot, but in another group of black dots, he seemed to see Zhang Haiyang's lonely figure.

Chapter 148: Welcome to the Loess Plateau

The train moved slowly forward, seemingly pulling everyone's thoughts back to reality. Zheng Tong also came to his senses and sighed at Zhong Yuemin.

As soon as Zhong Yuemin saw the guy's expression, he knew that this guy was definitely going to make fun of him again, so he scolded him.

"Speak your mind, or shut up!"

Zheng Tong snorted and said with dissatisfaction.

"Yuemin, you don't know how lucky you are! Ningbin and I have never even held a girl's hand since we were kids. Why is the world so unfair? You don't seem to have an extra nose or eyes, so why are you so popular with girls?"

Ning Bin nodded in agreement, and the two of them sighed together. Only Ning Wei, who was still ten years old, didn't understand anything and just watched the strange sight with a smile.

Zhong Yuemin chose to ignore the two of them and began to close his eyes and fall into deep thought.

Zhou Xiaobai's sudden confession caught Zhong Yuemin off guard. Should he really accept Zhou Xiaobai?

Zhong Yuemin didn't know either!

His feelings for Zhou Xiaobai didn't really reach the level of love; at most, he had a good impression of her. After all, any man would feel a special sense of pride being liked by a beautiful girl.

As can be seen from the original novel, Zhou Xiaobai is a very opinionated girl from childhood. Perhaps because of her family background, she has hardly experienced any setbacks from childhood to adulthood, so her personality is particularly strong. Her feelings for Zhong Yuemin are almost entirely pure.

She simply loved Zhong Yuemin. In the original novel, after she and Zhong Yuemin had a real relationship, her first thought was to bring Zhong Yuemin to her parents and get their approval for their relationship.

In the first half of her life, Zhong Yuemin was almost the only figure in her emotional world. At the same time, she expected that the other person should treat relationships in the same way she did.

However, Zhong Yuemin's personality is precisely that of a man who dislikes being restrained. His inherently unrestrained nature makes it impossible for him to be bound by a woman. Zhou Xiaobai's attitude towards relationships makes it impossible for him to accept that relationship.

He pursued Zhou Xiaobai from the beginning, perhaps only to satisfy some of his adolescent fantasies and desires about women. But once he got her, he didn't want to continue because he felt that love and marriage should be two different concepts.

That's why the two were entangled for half their lives. The hurt Zhou Xiaobai suffered also made Zhong Yuemin feel extremely guilty. However, after feeling guilty, he still followed his heart and chose to give up that relationship.

Zhou Xiaobai's feelings for him are still budding, and Zhong Yuemin can't convince himself to accept the relationship. However, his body's desire for women makes it impossible for him to completely reject Zhou Xiaobai's pursuit.

Therefore, Zhong Yuemin could only choose to temporarily escape this relationship. Isn't time the best healer?

Whether it's Zhou Xiaobai or themselves, perhaps after a while, these feelings will be replaced by new ones, and this relationship that hasn't even started will gradually fade away.

If he and Zhou Xiaobai really develop feelings for each other in the future, he will definitely give Zhou Xiaobai an explanation, instead of letting a girl's youth be completely wasted like in the original novel.

The train slowly moved forward, and the scenery outside gradually changed from the monotonous colors of Yanjing. Many people were leaving home for the first time, let alone to northern Shaanxi, more than a thousand kilometers away. Everyone had mixed feelings and looked at the scenery outside with different emotions.

Zhong Yuemin stared blankly at the scenery outside the window. Low earthen houses flashed by, and on the vast fields, countless dark figures were working with bent backs. Occasionally, a group of children with rosy cheeks from the cold, wearing tattered cotton-padded coats and even barefoot, could be seen standing by the railway, watching the train pass by with curiosity.

Zhong Yuemin looked at the children and fell into deep thought. Perhaps those children were his future parents. Every generation has its own troubles, and every generation has its own pursuits and ideals!

Children of this generation only care about filling their stomachs.

But what are one's own ideals and pursuits?

Zhong Yuemin stared blankly at his reflection in the window, unsure of what his ideal truly was. Sometimes, he was caught in a conflicting dilemma: was this a dream, or the reality of his life?

Perhaps the Zhong Yuemin in the original novel was even more confused than him, spending his whole life searching and on the road. At least the current Zhong Yuemin knows what he will face in the future. He suddenly remembered four words: "Playing the game of life!"

Perhaps my current mindset is simply to enjoy life to the fullest!

The only difference between myself and Zhong Yuemin in the original work is that I know what kind of life I want, while Zhong Yuemin never knows what kind of life he wants.

The train had been traveling for a day and a night without anyone noticing. The young people in the carriage had lost their initial curiosity and excitement, and Zheng Tong and his companions had long since lost their wit and were no longer in the mood for banter.

Zhong Yuemin had checked the information. The journey from Yanjing to northern Shaanxi involved many stops along the way, requiring a three-day and three-night train ride, followed by a bus ride to the county town, and finally a donkey cart ride to the village where he was assigned to work. Each leg of the journey would take four or five days, and it was still a long way off!

Along the way, everyone was listless, but Zhong Yuemin quickly adapted to the environment, took out a book, and began to read slowly.

After several days of travel, the group's spirits visibly waned, but they recovered somewhat after getting off the train.

As the group disembarked at the train station, they found banners everywhere welcoming the educated youth from Yenching, and a welcoming ceremony with gongs and drums, making the entire train station festive and rekindling the passion of the educated youth.

As Zhong Yuemin watched all this, seeing the educated youth full of positive energy, he felt a mix of emotions. He could only wish them that in the next few years, they could find the true meaning of life on this land.

The group was then led by representatives from the Gobi Desert Committees of various counties to their respective counties, according to their assigned locations.

After another day of travel, on the morning of the fifth day, the group finally arrived in the county town.

Zhong Yuemin, Zheng Tongning, and eleven others were taken to the county town by Secretary Gao of Shichuan Village Brigade, along with several villagers, in a donkey cart, where they were picked up and brought back to the brigade.

To show the importance attached to these educated youth, the county also pinned red flowers on the chests of each of them, making it both festive and solemn.

But Zhong Yuemin knew that soon they would be like fish that had been released into the wild, their survival entirely dependent on their own efforts to find food.

Along the way, the men and women finally regained their former enthusiasm, and everyone was full of curiosity and excitement about what lay ahead, chattering away incessantly.

Only Zhong Yuemin placed the prepared backpack on the donkey cart. As the cart swayed and rocked, he chewed on a blade of grass he had picked up from somewhere. Occasionally, a look of curiosity crossed his face as he surveyed the increasingly desolate hillside. All around him was a sea of ​​yellow, with hardly a trace of green. Even the wind seemed to carry a taste of yellow sand.

At this moment, Zhong Yuemin finally understood why this land was called the Loess Plateau.

Apart from the loess soil, Zhong Yuemin saw no other scenery here. Occasionally, he could see an old man herding sheep in the distance.

As far as the eye can see, all that's left is loess and high slopes, stretching as far as the eye can see. It's as if the world consists of nothing but endless loess slopes. This terrain is truly amazing.

Upon arriving here, one feels a special sense of pride and ambition. For children who have lived in the city for a long time, this place makes them feel like birds, soaring freely across the boundless land!

From a distance, the two mountains appear to be connected, but upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that there is a ravine over a hundred meters deep between them. To get from one mountain to the other, one must take a winding mountain road that stretches for dozens of miles.

Zhong Yuemin marveled at the wonders of creation, but also felt sorry for the people living on this land. No matter how beautiful the scenery was, it couldn't fill their stomachs. For the people who had lived here for generations, this was not a good place.

Given this unique geographical environment and the fact that the land was unsuitable for cultivation, it's no wonder that the original work contains such a description in this era when people depended on the weather for their livelihood.

In the past fifty years, there have only been two years when people were truly able to eat their fill. For the remaining forty-eight years, they had to go to other places to beg for food during the winter off-season. This fine tradition of begging for food has become a custom passed down from generation to generation by the locals.

Recalling this memory, Zhong Yuemin felt a little worried about the life ahead, wondering if the dozen or so kilograms of seasoning he had prepared would be enough.

To prepare for this trip to northern Shaanxi, Zhong Yuemin had swindled several dozen yuan from Yuan Jun. He used all the money to stock up on supplies. For this trip to northern Shaanxi, he prepared a large bag of seasonings specifically for making vegetarian chicken, weighing more than ten kilograms.

He planned to use these seasonings, except when food was scarce, to make roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) or pancakes in the county town. With the chicken-flavored filling, they could at least be exchanged for some food to temporarily solve everyone's livelihood problems.

Seeing the Loess Plateau in the distance, Zhong Yuemin suddenly remembered that his friend Li Kuiyong had also been sent to work in the countryside nearby. In the original novel, it seemed that he was on the hillside next to his own, and the two brigades could even sing folk songs in response to each other across the hillside.