In the blink of an eye, a month had passed.
Deng Tianxin and his group arrived at Iron Ox Village.
The changes in Iron Ox Village were even greater than Deng Tianxin had expected.
The dirt road that had once turned so muddy in the rain that there was nowhere to step had been rebuilt into a flagstone path wide enough for two ox carts to pass side by side, stretching straight to the village entrance.
That crooked-necked tree was still there, but it was now protected by a newly built ring of bluestone fencing. Its branches were covered with red cloth strips and dried corn, making it a lively sight in the village.
Not far from the entrance stood a stone stele half a person's height, engraved with the three characters Iron Ox Village. The writing was not especially good, but it was neat and upright, as though some child in the village who had only recently learned to read had carved it stroke by stroke.
Further inside, the houses were no longer the low, drafty stone huts of old.
Most of the households had rebuilt them into tiled houses, and several even had flagstone drying yards in front, hung with cured meat and rows of dried fish.
A familiar savory fragrance drifted through the air, mixed with the scent of meals cooked over firewood. One whiff was enough to tell that life here was going well.
The moment Xiao Wu entered the village, she looked all around, her eyes shining. "Tianxin, is this really the village you used to live in? It's changed so much—it's like an entirely different place!"
She truly had not expected that in just a few years, Iron Ox Village would undergo such earth-shaking changes.
"I almost didn't recognize it either." Deng Tianxin smiled,