A Hard Banana.

Tang Yu plucked the only ripe banana that stem had to offer. Whereas every other banana was dark green and rock solid, this one had some shading of green between the yellow in the peel. She broke the tiny stem, pulled down the peels, then shoved the white flesh into her mouth. However, it was hard and tasted kind of chalky. As if it wasn't enough to turn her off, the inside was chock-full of black BB bullet-like seeds and contained very little edible flesh. She scowled, chewing them, as they produced subtle popping sounds inside her mouth. Modern bananas were a far cry from this! They were rich with flesh, and destitute of seeds.

In the end, Tang Yu couldn't even push herself for the second bite, and binned the banana in a broken jute basket. If the bland taste of the fruit wasn't the strong reason, then the enticing sight of two ripe mangoes tied in a single stem completely lured her hungry stomach into the wastage of food. She grabbed them from the hanging, and squeezed them both lightly. Perfectly ripe! Her eyes twinkled at the fruity aroma that the injured stem had been emitting. Mango was her favorite fruit. She washed them quickly, cut off the stem, created a base, then peeled the skin off using her teeth. Soon, the pale orange soft flesh loaded with sweet juice began disappearing from the fibrous hard seed. The yummy taste coated her tongue. "Mnn~" Tang Yu moaned from satisfaction. She sucked the seed, drinking the juice clean.

….

The River-cut village was a marvelous sight to behold — paradisal in one word. Tang Yu took delight, filling her eyes with the view of pastoral rolling hills. She walked down the greenish slopes carefully where the grasses barely reached her ankles — steering clear of the meadow full of tall grasses and blooming wildflowers. That place must be the house of tons of leeches. Many villagers, however, pastured their livestock there.

The very thought of that creepy creature creeping around gave her goosebumps. A wave of breeze came blowing down the hillside, almost pushing her down. She gave a tight-lipped smile to nature. 'Thanks but no thanks -- gravity's pull is enough for me.' She squinted her eyes; a sight of some sort of cereal crop greeted her vision from afar. In a closer look, she could make out the patches of wheat field scattered at different altitudes in the hillside opposite her.

Ten minutes into non-stop walking, Tang Yu came down to the flat valley floors. She passed a tract of moist low-lying grassland and stood before the wheat field. They had almost dried to a golden yellow color with a tiny bit of green in the stems. The grain bearing tips were glowing magnificently in the warm sunshine while the stems waved with the gentle flow of air.

"Beautiful." Tang Yu murmured softly. The upright tillers were armed with leaves rolled in the whorl. Her fingers couldn't help grazing the blades she had only seen in pictures, very curiously. The smoothness near the base was replaced by a rough texture near the tip on the upper side. 'This crop will be ready to be harvested in a fortnight, won't they?' She thought, lacking conviction. Her knowledge in agriculture was purely bookish rather than practical. As for her practical knowledge, it was stuck at bare basics for she only ever farmed some veggies!

At that moment, the sounds of waves crashing on to something else grabbed Tang Yu's attention. Water was flowing through the stems in the field. Half of the wheat plants had been flattened by the destructive wind and flooding rain. 'A large amount of grains must have been slapped off of the plants by the strong wind. Who knows how much of the grains are left now…' She felt a strong tug of compassion in her heart for the farmers who had shed blood, sweat and tears, toiling away in the fields. The heavy rainfall took its toll on the crops.

"What brought you here?" A baritone with a thick accent flowed inside Tang Yu's ears, startling her a little. She turned her head sideways, and found her father-in-law standing not far from her. A hoe was hanging from his shoulder. "I just came," He clarified quickly, lest she should lay the blame of creeping around on him.

Tang Yu smiled gently; in her mind, she wasn't in front of her father-in-law, rather a farmer who just suffered a loss in the hand of nature. "I wanted to see the crops, as it rained heavily for three days straight."

"I see." Mu Bingwen said. It was obvious from his expression that he didn't really believe it. However, he decided to stomach his suspicions. All of a sudden, his gaze sparkled with a hint of assumption. "You do not have to worry though! We will not let you go hungry in our home!" He patted his broad chest as he claimed vigorously, "Mu family is the biggest rice grower in the village. We still have half a granary left from our last year's harvest. It will smoothly take us through six more months. Although we couldn't yield a large cereal harvest this summer, it passed the halfway mark. On top of it, we will sow for the autumn harvest in just two months."

Tang Yu couldn't put a kibosh on the laughter that flowed out of her lips. "That's actually the least of my concerns as of now. The number of fruit trees you have around your house, we all can survive on them alone for months!" It wasn't an exaggeration at all. Be it mango, jackfruit, watermelon, lychee, pineapples, the Mu family had them all! She ate summer fruit that morning; and peak season would run from May to September.

Tension slowly eased off Mu Bingwen's shoulders at Tang Yu's cheerful words. He posited his gaze on the field, sadness apparent.

It didn't escape Tang Yu's eyes. Nonetheless, instead of offering consolation words, she asked, "Father, do you have wheat fields?"

Mu Bingwen didn't avert his gaze from the field, and pointed ahead with his chin, "This one is ours. We've two more wheat fields and four rice fields."

Tang Yu nodded lightly, absorbing the information. "When will you harvest this one?"

Mu Bingwen bent forward, snapped a seed-head off a plant, crushed it between his callous palms. The husks had been shedded off; he blew on his palms, which made the husks fly away leaving the grains of wheat there. He threw them in his mouth, chewing them, before replying, "They are pretty much hard; in two weeks, the crop will be ready to go home."

Just as Tang Yu guessed. She also knew they had to wait until the sun baked the earth, and the rainwater that had settled on the field went away. "Father, what about the water? The stems have broken, lying on the field." The natural disaster preyed on the crops in the last minute.

Mu Bingwen laughed, finding her statement funny. "We can't drive wooden stakes into the ground next to the cereal plants in order to straighten them up!" His shoulders shook, as he threw his head back in the loud laugh.

Tang Yu almost face-palmed; was there a word called 'stupid' written on her forehead? No, right? "Field is filled with water, the ground is sloshy. If we step on it for driving stakes, won't we cause root damage?" She asked, displaying a gentle smile. Mu Bingwen's laughter died slowly, taking the words. He scratched his head, embarrassed. "We should take the water out so that the stems don't rot. Two weeks is a long time. What if grains start sprouting?" Tang Yu said.

Mu Bingwen appeared surprised at Tang Yu's knowledge of farming. Usually, city people lacked knowledge on this matter. Then, on a second thought, she was educated. Perhaps, she studied it out of curiosity. Mu Yunsheng enjoyed learning about new things as well. "That's true. In fact, I came here to dig a ditch for carrying off rainwater." He went to a corner of the land, and untied the knot of the ropes. They fenced their lands with ropes, in order to protect the crops from cattles. "But, my worst fear is what if it rains again? To make it worse, this land is located at the lowest altitude. The rain water rolling down the hills might inundate it again."

Tang Yu followed her father-in-law to the corner, as she began to bare her heart to him, "What about we build a meter tall mud wall around the perimeter of this land, surrounding the crops to prevent the rolling water from the mountain from flooding it? The trench that you are about to dig will take the water poured down on this land away. That means, no more stagnant water unless a real flood occurs. But, that's also unlikely to happen, on the basis, farm lands are located on the higher altitudes. And, the river is flowing through the lowest valley."