I am not Ximen Qing.

Now, everyone was captivated by Jin Yu's perfumed and fragrant scent. Eighteen is the most beautiful and vibrant age for a woman. Jin Yu's skin, slicked back with lard, was incredibly radiant; her hair was glossy black. She was full of vitality and charm. This was all she was capable of; to Zhang Honglin, she was simply a beautiful and alluring woman. Just then, the union was preparing for an inspection by higher-ups, and someone recommended Zhang Honglin, this unassuming painter. Jin Yu told her mother, and Pearl was overjoyed. It turned out that this artist, whom the powerful Zhang Honglin admired, worked at the forest farm. She then told Baoshan, the canteen manager told the union chairman, who in turn told Secretary Zhang. Secretary Zhang then commissioned Honglin to paint a large-scale, impressionistic portrait of the Dahe Forest Farm for the office.

Uncle Huang Yumin unexpectedly became the biggest beneficiary. He had wine to drink in the production team because everyone in the forestry farm knew this "master" was Zhang Honglin's uncle. He also received a special treat from the canteen during holidays; Guo Baoshan would bring back chicken, duck, goose, meat, fruits, and vegetables from the canteen and send them across the river to Huang Yumin, who worked as a scarecrow for the production team. For some reason, Guo Jinyu particularly disliked this former playboy. Guo Jinyu seemed to find something strange about Huang Yumin. Despite not having a family, Huang Yumin was healthy and had good teeth. In his youth, his father had been wealthy and indulged in pleasure, truly a womanizer. In any case, Huang Yumin seemed to have found the true meaning of life. He was adept at navigating the relationships between his nephews and sisters. If he couldn't make it in the production team, he would find relatives and friends to help him move elsewhere. Even as society developed, watchmen and security guards were still needed.

Honglin and Guo Jinyu's love was just one step away from blossoming into romance. The comrades on the kang (heated brick bed) were all giving Zhang Honglin advice, all wanting to push the artist into Da Li's clutches. This Dahe Forest Farm wasn't exactly a place for a philandering artist, but Secretary Zhang of the forest farm greatly admired Honglin's talent. This Secretary Zhang was quite young and unmarried. Director Qiao was also a young, unmarried man. The fact that the secretary and director were both unmarried wasn't because they didn't like the girls at the forest farm, but because they were intimidated by the vast difference in their social status. Actually, both Director Qiao and Secretary Zhang had expressed affection for Jinyu, because Guo Jinyu was so capable, especially in spring and autumn, a strong woman who traversed the mountains. The "mountain tour" actually refers to the Changbai Mountain region in Northeast China. Springtime is the season for gathering wild vegetables: large-leaf celery, wild rhizome, bracken, monkey's leg (a type of wild vegetable), toon sprouts, prickly ash, wild rhizome, wild berries, and more. In autumn, there are schisandra berries, wild grapes, and various rare mountain mushrooms, frozen mushrooms, elm mushrooms, and mountain fungus. If you're lucky, you might even find a ginseng root. Hazelnuts, walnuts, and wild pears are also plentiful. The men's aesthetic views are all quite similar; in the forest farm, whether it's the secretary or the factory director, their ideas still reflect the old-fashioned male chauvinism.

In Northeast China, people hibernate during the winter because of the freezing weather. They store up enough food and drink for the entire winter, enough firewood, and the kang (heated brick bed) is always burning brightly with firewood, so warm that they don't feel the need to wear clothes. Guo Jinyu was outstanding among the forest farm girls in terms of both looks and character. Although she had the unrefined nickname "Big Fierce" and was a little less educated, graduating from elementary school was quite good in those days, and Jinyu's handwriting was surprisingly beautiful. Guo Jinyu, if only she had been a little more discerning, she wouldn't have had the chance to go to Honglin. However, the impressionistic atmosphere of Linhai Elementary School was too profound; otherwise, the artistic soul could truly captivate a girl's charm. Women are sensitive during their youth. Don't think Guo Jinyu was oblivious; she also sensed that Secretary Zhang and Director Qiao had feelings for her. However, Mother Pearl quickly dispelled Guo Jinyu's unrealistic idea. Knowing Jinyu's temperament, Mother Pearl secretly observed Zhang Honglin and decided that no matter what, Guo Jinyu's desire to marry the factory director and secretary was somewhat unrealistic. Marrying an artist would allow her to be a queen at home, and if the man could tolerate her fierce temper, the marriage would be fine. There were also Wang Kunlun, Lin Jingtai, Zhang Qinghua, Li Beida, and the young and spirited Ma Luozi. The colleagues, lying together on the warm kang (heated brick bed), teased Zhang Honglin, saying it was time to test his sincerity. They brought wine and some everyday gifts, but Guo Jinyu, the fierce one, didn't even look at them. The colleagues were unaware that the factory director and secretary had a good impression of the canteen manager's eldest daughter. But what about Honglin now? Because of the publicity work at Dahe Forestry Farm, several large portraits of Marx and Engels were painted for the offices, along with several Chinese paintings, which were hung in the offices of the secretary and factory director. The bureau's inspection went smoothly, and Dahe Forestry Farm had excellent production safety practices, with no accidents reported.

Colleagues suggested that Zhang Honglin give Guo Jinyu's mother a set of red pine longevity ornaments, as it is much more difficult to work with red pine longevity ornaments now than before, and it is becoming increasingly difficult.

"But shouldn't the cafeteria manager also get one?"

"Honglin, are you crazy? Get a set for your mother first, get the wedding done quickly, and then you can get one for your future father later. Getting everything done is too risky."

"Yes, what if Jin Yu insists on marrying the Party Secretary and the Factory Director?"

"The chicken flew and the eggs were broken!"

The older generation was quite enlightened; they prepared their coffins in advance and stored them in the storeroom. Preparing in advance was believed to ward off the spirits of death, as those who weren't afraid of death wouldn't dare bully those with strong yang energy.

Honglin, frankly speaking, was also forced into this role. The factory director and secretary even proactively provided him with cigarettes, alcohol, and tea to avoid any appearance of impropriety, after all, Honglin had contributed significantly to the Dahe Forestry Farm. A trend swept through the Dahe Forestry Farm—a trend of love, a trend of romance. The canteen manager had a huge influence on the young men of the forestry work teams. Not only did Dahe Forestry Farm know this, but so did Hongqi Forestry Farm, Jiefang Forestry Farm, Dongfanghong Forestry Farm, and many other forestry farms in Changbai Mountain. There were simply too many young men in the mountain forestry farms, and the forestry farms had built so many schools. What for? Schools are for children to learn! So, the focus on love and romance was too romantic. Yes, the snow-covered forests are romantic enough. It's a place suitable for great painters, artists, and writers to experience the forest, to feel the real morning dew on the reeds in the mountains, to walk in and out of the reeds, their clothes soaked with moisture. Grasshoppers hopped and leaped everywhere in the grass and mountains, and sparrows roamed the hillsides. Even the workers had taken to raiding bird nests and collecting eggs. The forests on the mountainsides along the riverbank of the Dahe Forest Farm became a haven for black crows, dense flocks covering the lush foliage of the towering trees. They were intelligent birds; even the eagles had almost vanished. Why? Because crows are the most gregarious and united of the large birds. Even if truly powerful eagles and roc appeared, the crows of the Dahe Forest Farm wouldn't be afraid. Crows weren't the evil birds of legend; on the contrary, wherever humans were, they would choose high places to observe their every move. The most important place in the Dahe Forest Farm was the station, the hub connecting the mountains to the outside world. Day and night, the endlessly running locomotives pulled dozens of carriages, carrying freshly felled logs from the forest on their journey out of the mountains.

The locomotive chugged and puffed, the steam from the engine pistons, the friction in the air, and the whistle echoing deep into the forests, billowing thick black smoke as it sped into the heart of the mountains. The maintenance depot at Dahe Forest Farm was brightly lit all day long; the welding lathes, machine tools, and chainsaws from the nearby sawmill hummed and roared, their noise resonating in the air. The depot's main tasks were repairing and manufacturing mechanical faults and spare parts. At the very least, it had to be able to manufacture boilers for heating and bathing, quickly repair various types of tractors used for hauling logs, and also repair diesel locomotives, sometimes even the engines of Jiefang brand trucks. Some workers had hobbies; the hunters could easily use the various lathes and machine tools in the depot to build a homemade cannon for hunting black bears. It seemed that Dahe Forest Farm lacked almost all the basic facilities the bureau had. An oil depot was built on the bank of the river to store gasoline and diesel, as well as an explosives depot, located near the production team. It was unguarded and simply locked with a padlock. There was a small window about the size of a head for ventilation, which was sealed with a steel fence to prevent naughty children from climbing in and stealing the explosives. The children did not know what the explosives were for; they could only occasionally hear explosions in the mountains. The detonators for the explosives were managed by the militia captain of the Dahe Forestry Farm's armed forces department.

Many young teachers and intellectuals came to the forest farm, but none of them were from Fudan University in the big cities. These young intellectuals were students who had graduated and been assigned to various forest farms by the bureau to support the intellectuals in the country's major cities. Many of these teachers were graduates of teacher training colleges. Their arrival had a significant impact on the young men working in the mountain labor teams, because the young women in the forest farm admired teachers more. These so-called cultured people were far superior to the laborers who pulled tractors and cut down trees.

Honglin recalled her conversation with her homeroom teacher, Li Yuqing; it was truly a miracle. The orderly development of Dahe Forest Farm—the clinic, department store, grain station, cold storage, the forest farm compound, the office compound, the beautiful train station—didn't reveal its beauty in winter, summer, or autumn. Only when the snow-covered mountains and the melting ice of the Dahe River appeared, a layer of clear water on top of the thick ice, would the mountains remain covered in snow, showing no signs of early spring. Perhaps it was the chaotic beauty of her love for Jinyu that brought her back to mind, recalling what Teacher Li Yuqing had described about the wild rhododendrons blooming all over the mountains of Dataizi when she first arrived at the bureau. Honglin gazed at the scene before her. The towering cliff face, stretching for two kilometers, was carpeted with rhododendrons, their branches bursting with clusters of vibrant pink blossoms. High above, the verdant pines formed a beautifully layered canopy, their verdant canopy complementing the surrounding landscape. This breathtaking beauty, so close yet so far, only a kilometer from her dormitory, had never been noticed before! No wonder Honglin felt this way; she spent almost every day in the red pine forest. Honglin truly had a connection with the red pine forest, though those imposing, ancient red pines were becoming increasingly rare.

He now feels the vitality and energy that intellectuals bring to Dahe Forest Farm, but he also feels greater pressure. In Dahe Forest Farm, it's not just about romantic love anymore; it's even more about marrying an intellectual, so that future generations won't have to work hard up the mountain, and can become young and promising office workers like Secretary Zhang or Director Qiao.

Lin Jingtai, without any illusions, married a Shandong girl from his hometown. Now, more and more forestry workers are getting married, and the Dahe Forestry Farm is accelerating the construction of more family housing – villas with red bricks, gray tiles, and red pine beams, the kind of homes that rural people envy. Rural residents work for the forestry farm, making bricks and tiles, yet they still live in the worst mud-brick and thatched-roof houses. Nothing compares to the free housing benefits offered by the Dahe Forestry Farm! But household registration dictates that farmers can only live in simple mud-brick and thatched houses, while workers can only live in the red-brick, gray-tiled, and red-pine-beamed family housing. The farmers can't understand why they can't afford brick houses because of their land, while the loggers can live comfortably in warm, cool houses, and there are schools, clinics, department stores, and grain stations – they get rations and don't have to worry about the weather to eat!