PhD holder resigns from a million-yuan salary to return home and farm, gets mocked; years later, leads the whole village to prosperity and wins praise

Seven years ago, Huazi, a PhD student, had a good job in the city with an annual salary of over 1 million yuan. However, to fulfill a childhood dream, he quit his job, left his wife behind, and returned alone to his rural hometown to farm with his elderly father. At the time, Huazi's story spread all over the city. Some said he was a bookworm, others said he was foolish, and even his wife Lingling said he was crazy. However, seven years later, he accomplished one thing and became the "outstanding one" in the eyes of the whole village, earning everyone's praise.

That day, Huazi sat having dinner with his wife and son. Huazi suddenly said to his wife, "Lingling, I quit my job." His wife was startled, put down her chopsticks, and asked in confusion, "You were doing so well, why quit? Were you unhappy? Or did your boss give you a hard time?" Huazi glanced at his wife and said, "Neither. I just want to go back to my hometown and do something."

Huazi explained to his wife the reason for quitting. It turned out that when Huazi was little, his family was extremely poor. His father was lame, and his mother fell ill and passed away when he was five years old. Normally, the villagers, seeing his family's hardship, often helped them out. When they had more vegetables than they could eat, they would bring them to his home, and during the Dragon Boat Festival, they would also bring some zongzi to his family.

Huazi was sensible from a young age and studied especially hard. In the year of the college entrance exam, he was admitted with excellent grades to a key university in the provincial capital. He got into university, but the tuition became a problem. To scrape together his tuition, his father borrowed from everyone he could, but only managed to gather half of it. As the start of the school term approached, the tuition was still not enough. At that time, Huazi cried anxiously, and his father was at his wit's end. Just then, the village party secretary lent them a hand, organizing the whole village to donate money, and only then was the tuition finally collected.

After entering university, Huazi studied while doing work-study jobs. After graduating, he worked while pursuing his doctorate. After working for several years, he felt it was time to repay the villagers, so he quit his job and returned to his hometown.

The first thing Huazi did after returning to his hometown was accompany his father to work in the fields, conducting an in-depth study of the village's farmland. Being skilled in biological research, he quickly discovered that the village's soil was suitable for growing lingzhi (reishi mushrooms).

With his father's help, Huazi tried converting half of his family's farmland to grow lingzhi. At that time, the villagers all laughed at him, saying this place had been growing rice for decades or even over a hundred years, how could it possibly grow lingzhi? An elder in the village laughed at Huazi behind his back, saying he had studied himself stupid, giving up a perfectly good job to come back and compete with farmers for land to plant.

In the first year, Huazi's experiment failed, and all the lingzhi he planted rotted. For a whole year, Huazi had no income at all and even lost a large sum of money. His wife couldn't understand either, clamoring for him to return to the city to work, saying if he didn't go back, she would divorce him. Huazi knew his wife was speaking out of anger, didn't take it seriously, and continued researching his lingzhi cultivation.

As time flew by, Huazi researched for three years before finally successfully growing lingzhi. Three years later, Huazi contracted several hundred mu of land and established a lingzhi cultivation base. Moreover, he helped the entire village's residents start growing lingzhi together. Previously, the villagers' annual income was less than 100,000 yuan, but since growing lingzhi, their income doubled.

In just three short years, the whole village became wealthy. Every household built a small Western-style building, and some even bought cars. At this point, everyone gave Huazi a thumbs-up. Even local TV station reporters came to interview him. For a time, Huazi became a local celebrity. In the interview with reporters, Huazi said, "I just did an ordinary thing, not worthy of everyone's praise. When I was young, the villagers helped me a lot. Now that I have the ability, I should help them too. This was a childhood dream of mine."

Now, Huazi's dream has come true. However, a headache-inducing problem has arisen again. Huazi stays in the countryside year-round, while his wife and child are in the city. The couple has been living apart for years, and their relationship has gradually grown cold. Not long ago, his wife asked him for a divorce. He knew this time it was real. If he didn't return to the city, his wife would definitely divorce him. But he still wanted to do more for the villagers. Between family and career, he found it hard to choose.

(End of story. If you like it, click [Follow]. Text by Gege, images unrelated to the text.)